Doctors Say Food Stamp Cuts Could Cause Higher Healthcare Costs

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Lauran Neergaard writes at the Christian Science Monitor that doctors are warning that if Congress cuts food stamps, the federal government could be socked with bigger health bills because over time the poor wind up seeking treatment in doctors' offices or hospitals as a result. 'If you're interested in saving health care costs, the dumbest thing you can do is cut nutrition,' says Dr. Deborah Frank of Boston Medical Center, who founded the Children's HealthWatch pediatric research institute. 'People don't make the hunger-health connection.' Food stamps feed 1 in 7 Americans and cost almost $80 billion a year, twice what it cost five years ago. The doctors' lobbying effort comes as Congress is working on a compromise farm bill that's certain to include food stamp cuts. Republicans want heftier reductions than do Democrats in yet another partisan battle over the government's role in helping poor Americans. Conservatives say the program spiraled out of control as the economy struggled and the costs are not sustainable. However research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts estimated that a cut of $2 billion a year in food stamps could trigger in an increase of $15 billion in medical costs (PDF) for over the next decade. Other research shows children from food-insecure families are 30 percent more likely to have been hospitalized for a range of illnesses. 'Food is medicine,' says Massachusetts Representative Jim McGovern, who has led the Democrats' defense of the food stamp program. 'Critics focus almost exclusively on how much we spend, and I wish they understood that if we did this better, we could save a lot more money in health care costs.'"

Comments

Re:Math, do it.

[icebike]

The U.S. has had a food stamp program for a very long time, it wasn't till the economic collapse 6 years ago that it doubled in size. Welcome to the world of outsourcing and increased robotics.

Welcome to yet another follow on effect of forcing banks to lend money to homeowners who could not in fact afford to pay it back.

  It had nothing to do with robotics. The economic collapse was triggered by Jimmie Carter, and percolated through several subsequent administrations, which lead to banks trying desperately to get rid of non-performing loans. The bundled them up and sold them as asserts when they knew damn well they were worthless.

When the house of cards suddenly came crashing down, people got thrown out of work, and vast numbers had to resort to food stamps.

When the history of this period is finally written, (not possible with some of the key players still running the government) this mess will be traced to the worst form of government edicts and meddling in the banking sector, and then bailing those banks out of the mess they created using tax payer money.

Everyone loves to hate on the banks. But they were forced into these stupid loans.