'Poisoning Poor People': John James Questions RFK Jr. About Junk Food & Food Deserts

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During a House Energy Committee hearing last week, Rep. John James (R-MI) asked Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about junk food & food deserts.

Transcript

00:00For five minutes of questioning. Mr. Secretary, welcome. Thank you for your time and your service.

00:05I am grateful for you being here. We've gotten to have some real good conversations here today

00:10because when it comes to the health of this country, as has been said many times before,

00:13we do not have a health care system. We have a sick care system. I'm just going to jump directly

00:18to my questions here. In your time and your research, do you have any objectives or any

00:27ideas on how to reverse the perverse incentives and some of the abuses that are happening with

00:31big companies and big government that are hurting people right now? I mean, at every level of the

00:39system, there are, as you say, it's just a bundle of perverse incentives that encourage people that

00:45basically put every actor in the system, pharmaceutical companies, providers, hospitals,

00:51and insurance companies in an advantageous position if they increase the number of sick

00:57Americans and the level of our illness. And the way that we need to change that broadly is to

01:03realign the incentives that people are getting paid to actually make people better. So we want

01:09outcome-based medical care. We want value-based medical care. We're working through the Center

01:16for Medical Intervention for CMI at CNN to explore a number of pilot projects. And we'll do just that.

01:24And then we want to roll them out across the system. But we're looking for every opportunity,

01:28and I had meetings all this week, including with all the big insurance companies that will do exactly

01:35that. They want to do it too. They understand this is not what anybody wants. And we've spoken with

01:39insurance companies too, and that's a big issue. But another big issue in the United States is we are still

01:45treating all calories equal, and they should not be. Ultra-processed junk food doesn't stack up

01:51to the calorie from an apple or fresh Michigan produce. We all know that we need to step up and

01:56address the fact that ultra-processed foods drive obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. But in Congress,

02:01we're still tiptoeing around the fact that less than 10 percent of Americans even follow current

02:06guidelines. Current food system is poisoning poor people, and it's wrong. This drives up costs

02:14in our health care system or sick care system, and it drives up our national debt. It's a national

02:19security issue. Are there any plans that you can share here today to address the food deserts

02:26in urban areas and rural areas across states like Michigan? You mentioned changing some incentives.

02:32Well, the leading areas before people get sick in the first place is a great place to do it.

02:36Yes, Congressman. The first thing that we need to do is to recalibrate the dietary guidelines, and

02:45those are due in December. We got a 453-page document from the Biden administration that was just the

02:53product of the same kind of industry control that put Froot Loops at the top of the food pyramid.

03:01And we're now going to give Americans a four- or five-page document that tells them

03:07what they should be looking for, particularly in their locality. And when we do that, it's going

03:12to drive good food. It's going to reduce the amount of processed food in our school lunch programs,

03:18in our military, in our hospitals, and other institutions. And it's going to drive good food.

03:24That's going to create markets for good food all over the country, and that's one of the ways we

03:28penetrate the food deserts. Very good. There's also programs under Medicaid to make sure that

03:33people in food deserts, on Indian reservations, in urban areas, etc., can get good food.

03:40Very good. We absolutely have to take care of the poorest of the poor. We need to make sure that folks

03:44who deserve it can have support from us. By the way, we're going to have the dietary

03:53guidelines out at least by August. So we're going to be months early, and I'm working with

03:58Brooke Rollins on that. And they're going to be very good. The government being early on something,

04:02that's great. Secretary Kennedy, yesterday you and CMS Administrator Oz secured an industry pledge

04:08to fix our broken prior authorization system. I hear stories from places like Flint, Michigan,

04:13where Dr. Bobby Mukamala sought prior authorization for full cancer screening after his patient's stage

04:22one tonsil cancer diagnosis so that he could determine the best treatment outcomes. When the

04:27patient finally received the PET scan three weeks later, the cancer progressed to stage two. These prior

04:32authorization reforms are critically necessary. What are you talking to industry folks about to hold

04:37them accountable for their pledges? The largest companies in the industry, and I brought them all

04:43together, have now pledged, made the pledge to us yesterday, that they are going to get rid of

04:4980 percent of the prior authorizations. And they're also going to make their systems interoperable. So

05:01it's much easier for a doctor to very quickly, before you leave the office, you should have that prior

05:06authorization. The gentleman's time has expired.

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