Food Groups

We're all familiar with the usual food groups:
Caffeine,
Cholesterol,
Fat,
Sugar,
Alcohol, and
Chocolate.

But this is not enough to cover all important foods humans eat. I propose several additional food groups, the Florescent foods group, Cold food and the Flat foods. Examples of florescent food include Trix and the multiple-flavored Twizzlers I met yesterday (Blueberry! Strawberry ummm!). Flat food includes pizza and fruit by the foot.

The original op-art movement was really about food diversity. Similarly, the Flat Earth Society was originally an advocacy organization comprised of manufacturers of flat foods like nan, pita bread, flat noodles and sole before getting distracted with the more pressing mission (pun intended) of developing educational materials about geology and the Earth.

The flat food group contains some unusual members. Consider ice cream, which could have belonged to the cholesterol or fat or sugar groups, but instead belongs to the cold food group. But what happens when ice cream melts? If it is in a bowl, not much. But, if you leave the ice cream on a plate or lying out on the counter, then after the ice cream melts, it is no longer cold. Further, it is flat! Melted ice cream belongs to the flat food group!

There are other food groups, you are encouraged to add them to the comments along with examples of those foods.

Acknowledgements: to my colleague Mas for alerting me to the florescent food group.

Insurance pricing and genetic information

Kevin Drum has a comment on insurance companies not allowed to use genetic information in setting their pricing. He doesn't understand why it shouldn't be allowed.

In setting prices, a company isn't required to use all available information in setting the price. Reasons can be many, from it being too hard, to making the product difficult to understand for consumers, to being bad customer relations.

Airlines have tried for years to segment their market and charge different individuals different amounts for the same exact flight. And where has that gotten them? Airlines rank up there with used car salespeople, spammers, music companies and telemarketers for popularity. Airlines that charge closer to a single price are much more popular, consider SouthWest, although even they have multiple price levels for the same plane.

If we disallow insurance companies from charging more for people with genetic errors, then insurance companies will find themselves in the situation they find themselves in right now, where virtually no one has genetic information. Thus, it isn't that strange that we might require them to stay with current pricing schemes.

Suppose that insurance companies knew exactly how much each individual in the world will cost in terms of health care, over their lifetime. Essentially, if companies charge more to more costly people, and less to cheaper/healthier individuals, then insurance is no longer an insurance product. Everyone pays their own exact cost(s), properly amortized over the years. Insurance becomes a charge-added (as opposed to value-added) product. The insurance companies take some money for their own trouble, and charge you what you should pay anyway. No value to you, except for the amortization service.

By requiring insurance be the same price to all people, the insurance company must charge the average person the average cost + fees for the insurance service. Everyone pays the same amount. Those who are healthier subsidize those who are less healthier, true. But everyone can potentially get insurance, as long as some one picks up the cost.

public health, war and the bill of rights

Nice comment from Rick Ayers over at the HuffPo. Makes the point that the military trains people (recruits) to kill people (the bad guys).

Public Health policy would say make love not war. Heal thy neighbor, don't kill her or him. Public Health and War are usually not good bedfellows. WWII may be an exception, but it isn't an easy decision to attempt to tally up the dead and wounded and decide whether there will be more pain and death on this course of action versus another course of action.

Regrettably, the current administration is not concerned about public health. Generally their policies support large corporations making money, their friends raking in money, and regular people (read poor, and middle class) do not need health care. Health care is a privilege, not a right. Unfortunately, we need to put that into the bill of rights.

The right to health care needs to be enshrined in the constitution.

A proposed amendment to the constitution:

Section 1. The federal government shall provide for the health and health care of all persons within its borders, for citizens outside of its borders and for members of the armed forces of the United States of America. Health care shall be equally available to all regardless of age, gender, wealth, race or any other characteristic distinguishing human beings.

Section 2. The federal government shall be authorized to institute laws to enforce and enable said health care. A health care administration will be brought into being to allocate funds to the health care of all.

Section 3. Health care is construed to be what is affordable and available; this amendment shall not be construed to mean the impossible.

What do you think?