Smoking rates among the poor are almost double the rates for middle-class Americans. Yet we are not providing poor people with the medical help they need to stop. We will pay billions for that later.
Having made a commitment to reduce spending, the federal government will have its work cut out with this year’s budget, which may require revisiting policy ideas that have caused it pain in the past.
Giving states the power to levy income tax won’t make up for the shortfall in health and education funding and it could mean poorer states are worse off.
Climate change means the number of overweight and obese people will fall by 2050, but these benefits will be massively outdone by a rise in underweight and malnourished people.
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne
Professor of Civil, Environmental & Ecological Engineering, Director of the Healthy Plumbing Consortium and Center for Plumbing Safety, Purdue University