Cutting Healthcare Costs & Eating Healthy in Schools

Cutting Healthcare Costs & Eating Healthy in Schools plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

The Ag Department is proposing to align meals served through the National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs with the latest dietary guidelines for all Americans. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack says the new proposal should cut the nation’s healthcare bill.

VILSACK: We know that if we do not get our hands around the obesity epidemic in the United States that by the year 2019 we will face nearly $344-bilion dollars of additional healthcare costs. That’s more than 21% of our current healthcare spending at a time when we are trying to reign in healthcare spending. That’s money we won’t be able to spend on innovation, creating jobs and improving our education system.

Every morning, students at Virginia Robinson Elementary and six other elementary schools in Pasco get a special snack, usually a fresh piece of fruit or some veggies in a small plastic bag. .  This is the second year of the "Fresh Fruit and Vegetable" Program a federally funded grant program. Pasco School District hopes to be able to expand the program into more schools next year.  Already the FFVP has received funding for next year, $2.8 million nationally, that's up from $2 of funding this year. 

Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.

See if this makes sense to you. Several food-processing workers were fired due to their failure to correct or respond to their employer over errors in their Social Security data; basically they gave false numbers and then wouldn’t, or probably more accurately, couldn’t provide valid SS numbers. In response to their being fired they began holding public demonstrations against the company for being an “abusive and racist employer”.  No, it doesn’t make sense, to me, or to Overhill Farms, the company that fired them. So, Overhill Farms filed a defamation and attempted extortion lawsuit against the terminated workers, and guess what, the judge upheld Overhill Farms right to sue. Of course now these ex-employees are asking the courts to overturn that ruling stating they’re claims of racism fall under constitutionally protected free speech opinion rights. So, these angry ex-employees, who remember, can not provide valid Social Security data, are demanding constitutional rights and are actually being allowed to tie up the court system. Making sense yet? No, didn’t think so. I guess lucky for us and them this could only happen in America.

Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.