Continuing my discussion of how ideological medical and science journals strive to redefine almost every public policy controversy into matters of public health to push leftwing agendas: An article in the notoriously woke New England Journal of Medicine argues that rather than give SNAP benefits to poor people–what used to be called food stamps — cash transfers should be provided to improve the “health” of the recipients.
Here’s the context: Bipartisan plans are afoot to restrict the items that can be purchased with SNAP benefits based on nutritional value. But the authors of the NEJM think this is paternalistic. And overseas welfare plans simply transfer funds to recipients and supposedly, this results in better health outcomes. So, just give people cash. From, “Keeping SNAP in Line with Global Evidence on Food Security:
In its current form, SNAP is neither explicitly a food-voucher program like WIC nor a cash-transfer program, given that benefits can be spent only on food. If policymakers want to steer the program toward one end of this spectrum to increase its effectiveness, evidence from global health and social policy suggests that a cash-transfer program is the better option. With more available resources, participants in cash-transfer programs appear to invest in products and services that improve health. Advocates for reimagining SNAP to look even less like a cash-transfer program must more clearly lay out the evidence supporting this major shift in health policy away from global trend.
In other words, free money to spend on junk food, apples, guns, drugs, smart phones, Disneyland, whatever.
I have always thought SNAP is about making sure no one in the USA goes hungry. Wrong!
In its current form, SNAP helps prevent the most severe forms of food insecurity and reaches more than 40 million people. Despite their aim of alleviating health disparities, proposals to introduce item restrictions in SNAP ignore a broader, global movement away from this kind of welfare program administration and toward systems that can more efficiently and effectively improve health.
In other words, in the name of “health,” we should shift to a system of no-strings-attached-spend-anyway-you-want, guaranteed income. See what I mean?