Let me make one thing perfectly clear.  I’m not running for president.  I’m kind of busy right now.  Anyway, I don’t have the clothes for a national campaign – not one pants suit in my closet – and I don’t think you could pay me enough to make me live in Washington DC, not even part time.  But I know that should I change my mind, there are two things, besides the clothes, that I’ll need:  piles and piles of money, and a health care plan.  In the interests of keeping my career options open, if you’d like to send me money, that would be cool.  Meanwhile, I’ve done some work on the health plan part, just in case.

 

Seems to me that if health care really were health care – not sick care, not Medicare, but actual care for our actual health – it would support that which helps to make and keep us healthy.  I know, sounds silly, doesn’t it?

On my plan – I’ve cleverly titled it the Jan C. Snow Health Care Plan – everybody gets a paid-in-full membership-for-life to the local Y or health club.  That’s kids, adults, seniors, everybody.

 

This is not news, people.  Exercise, or to be more precise, the lack of it, can be a factor in heart disease, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, depression, diabetes and a boatload of other problems, including, no doubt, many I’ve never even heard of.  We all know this.  So why aren’t exercise facilities part of our health care system?  Wouldn’t it be more cost effective to help people get fit rather than foot the bill for the consequences of obesity, hypertension and what all?  Thirty-some dollars a month to the Y or tens of thousands for a coronary by-pass?  Even I can do the math.

 

As for getting people to actually use these facilities, I’ve got that figured out.  It’s the old “hit ‘em in the wallet” strategy.  As long as you show up and go through your paces at least twice a week, it’s free.  The plan pays for it.  But if you don’t go, it’s deducted from your paycheck.  Or maybe added to your taxes.  It’s simple:  don’t exercise and you pay for it, in more ways than one.

 

Second, with the Jan C. Snow Health Care Plan, regular consultations with a nutritionist or dietician are on us.  Go as often as you like.  Once a year, every six weeks and twice on Tuesdays, maybe cooking classes, or a personal shopper on duty in every supermarket, whatever we need to learn how to eat food that’s better for us.  This also is not news.  We’ve heard it once or twice:  eat less sugar, less fat, less salt, more calcium, more fiber, fewer calories.  Eat those fruits and vegetables.  Eat those green and orange things.  Eat brightly colored foods, and M & Ms don’t count.  We know.  We just don’t do it.

 

Maybe my plan will include building some incentives into the cost of groceries – hit people in the wallet again.  Price supports for organic produce, meats prices on a sliding scale according to fat content, a surtax on Twinkies.  Wouldn’t anything that raises our ability to feed ourselves and our kids better be money well spent?

 

Like all good plans, and not incidentally, most good jokes, my plan follows the rule of three.  And the third major innovation of  the Jan C. Snow Health Care Plan addresses the issue of stress.

 

While stress alone may not bring on cancer or ulcers, it does seem to make matters worse.  Stress can raise your blood pressure and lower your resistance, set you wheezing or make your head ache.  So, on my health plan, everybody gets a massage every day.  There you have it: goodbye stress.

 

Also, goodbye hostility and aggression.  Which is why the daily massage dovetails neatly with my Crime Reduction and Domestic Violence Prevention programs, and is the centerpiece of my Job Creation program.  After all, somebody has to be trained to give all those massages.  And these are jobs that can’t be outsourced.

 

Daily massage is also an important element of the Jan C. Snow Vision for World Peace, however in the complex arena of international relations, massage alone won’t do it.  We’re also going to need kazoos and possibly hula hoops.  Purple ones would be best.

 

Meanwhile, my recommendation for our collective mental health is to log off the internet, turn off the TV and radio, put the newspapers and magazines aside, and listen to Mozart.  It’s a fact...  nothing gets the sound of politicians out of your head like Mozart.  (Hum along on your kazoo if you like.)