The Nutrition Source

How to Spot Added Sugar on Food Labels

Spotting added sugar on the food label requires a bit of detective work. Food and beverage manufacturers must list a product's total amount of sugar per serving on the Nutrition Facts Panel. But they are not required to list how much of that sugar is added sugar. That's why you'll need to scan the ingredients list of a food or drink to find the added sugar. (1)

All ingredients are listed in descending order by weight. (2) So the relative position of sugar in an ingredients list can give you an idea of whether the food contains a lot of sugar or just a smidge. Added sugars go by many different names, yet they are all a source of extra calories. The American Heart Association (AHA) has recommended that Americans drastically cut back on added sugar, to help slow the obesity and heart disease epidemics.(3) The AHA's suggested added sugar threshold is no more than 100 calories per day (about 6 teaspoons or 24 grams of sugar) for most women and no more than 150 calories per day (about 9 teaspoons or 36 grams of sugar) for most men. But remember—your body doesn't need to get any carbohydrate from added sugar. A good rule of thumb is to skip products that have added sugar at or near the top of the list—or have several sources of added sugar sprinkled throughout the list.

Here are a few of the names for added sugar that show up on food labels (list adapted from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (1)):

• Agave nectar
• Brown sugar
• Cane crystals
• Cane sugar
• Corn sweetener
• Corn syrup
• Crystalline fructose
• Dextrose
• Evaporated cane juice
• Fructose
• Fruit juice concentrates
• Glucose
• High-fructose corn syrup
• Honey
• Invert sugar
• Lactose
• Maltose
• Malt syrup
• Molasses
• Raw sugar
• Sucrose
• Sugar
• Syrup

I'm so tired of seeing High Fructose Corn Syrup in so many processed foods and beverages these days. But HFCS isn't the only sugar additive to watch out for in foods, some are sugar additives are worse than others. But since most people don't need added sugar to their diets, it's good to know what to look for. Hope this helps!

I recently returned from escorting both my three year old son and my 84 year old father on a visit to my sister in another state. Now, I have a well earned reputation in my family for a razor sharp - almost photographic - memory. Yet I felt like an airhead (blonde jokes aside) much of the trip.

Well, duh. Try keeping track of a fast moving child AND an octogenarian with dementia symptoms, carry-on bags and a wheelchair, while navigating an unfamiliar airport on a deadline - all without losing your cell phone, or your mind.

That's why I was really relieved to hear that the brain can max out when multitasking and it's not an age related phenomenon. How many tasks can you juggle and accurately complete?

Home > Attention Deficit > ADD Symptoms & Statistics

March 2010: Lynn Hsieh

IVF Babies' Risk for ADHD: Eleven Times Higher Than in Traditional Births

Children conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF) appear to have a higher risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD), new research suggests.

Friday March 12th - 3:00pm

ADDitude Magazine

One of the lingering questions that remains in modern infertility treatments is whether children conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF) -- when a woman’s egg is fertilized with a man’s sperm in a laboratory setting outside of the womb -- grow up as healthy as those conceived the more traditional way.

A new study that set out to find the answer suggests that while IVF young adults participants were similar to, and sometimes doing better than their counterparts, when it came to risk factors for chronic diseases, they were up to 11 times more likely to be diagnosed with certain psychological disorders, such as clinical depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD).

“Overall, the study showed good health and good adjustment of the ‘young IVF adults'...and although ADD was higher, the young adults were productive, attained good levels of education/jobs, and performed above average physical exercise,” said Sergio Oehninger, M.D., Ph.D., the medical director of the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine, and one of the authors of the study.

The study, published in February 2010 issue of Fertility and Sterility, surveyed 173 young adults, ages 18 to 26, who are members of the oldest generation of IVF births in the U.S . All were delivered between 1981 and 1990 at the Eastern Virginia Medical School's Jones Institute of Reproductive Medicine, which was also where the first U.S. IVF baby was born in 1981.

Some Other Highlights of the Study:

Smoking was less prevalent in IVF young adults but IVF females reported more instances of binge drinking (five or more drinks in a two-hour period) and alcohol use.

However, over two-thirds of the IVF young adults reported being diagnosed with a physical or psychological problem, most often relating to psychiatric conditions, vision problems and asthma or allergies.

More than 33 percent of study participants reported being diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, which is higher than the estimated three to five percent known to affect the general population. The same was true of the rate of depression among IVF study participants, which came in around 16 percent, compared with the 13 percent of adolescents and young adults up to 25 who are typically affected.

What is the Link Between IVF and ADD/ADHD?

While the study was not able to identify the cause of the higher incidence in ADD/ADHD, depression and binge drinking, behavioral problems could stem from either a high level of stress from parents undergoing IVF or from parents who were “overprotective” of their children, said Hind A. Beydoun, Ph.D., one of the authors of the study.

Couples where one or more members have ADD/ADHD and believe that conceiving through IVF may increase their future child’s risk for getting ADD/ADHD should not be discouraged. According to researchers, this study did not examine parental characteristics so they could not make any conclusions on whether children were more at risk for getting ADD/ADHD if their parents were first diagnosed. “We do not know the real percentages of ADD in a larger sample size, it could just be that IVF parents simply take children to the doctor more frequently (more cases can be diagnosed that way), or this may truly reflect that IVF families are stressed (like we know for infertility and cancer in general),” Oehninger said.

Prior to this study, researchers were unsure what impact the differences IVF babies experience during the early stages of embryonic development -- which affect a person's risk of chronic health conditions such as cancer or heart disease -- would have later on in life. Another piece to the puzzle that spurred researchers to conduct this study was that IVF often leads to multiple births, which increases the likelihood of preterm delivery, low birthrate, and fetal growth restrictions, all of which can also negatively affect children’s long-term development.

Because in vitro fertilization is a relatively recent procedure, earlier studies have focused only on the short-term outcomes following IVF births into infancy, childhood and adolescence.

More studies need to be conducted, cautioned the researchers, because of several limitations in their study. For instance, while 560 young adults were eligible and conducted for the study, only 173 responded. Also, parents who undergo IVF are often more affluent than the general population and this could explain some of the higher rates in diagnosis, as they may be more likely to be able to afford to pay for diagnosing treating conditions like ADD/ADHD. There was also no actual control group tested. Instead, researchers compared respondents to a subsample of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey of 1,315 young adults surveyed between 1999 and 2004.

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If I had only read the first two paragraphs of this article, I'd be thinking "my son is so screwed." He was an IVF baby and I have ADHD, so therefore it's almost inevitable that he has it too, right? WTF?

Come on, people. Statistical fallout from studies results in a lot of unnecessary panic. The last paragraph has the fine print that mitigates the hype of the headline, but you have to read to the end. And for the record, people with ADHD tend to jump to the end of an article (book, etc.) before they even read the beginning, so they're less likely to panic about this. Those relatively affluent, well educated parents who (like us) can afford to pay for and pay close attention to health issues in our children are more likely to see "learning disabilities" in our population because we can afford to, not because of any genetic or physical reason. Nevermind the IVF red herring.

I'll be the first to say ADHD isn't a scarlet letter that must be borne, it actually has some advantages. But really, who wants to wear a label unnecessarily that screams "disability" to the rest of the population?

The best recommendations to "prevent" ADHD in children are: too much TV is bad (for every hour watched per day, the risk rises by 10 percent) and emphasis on regular exercise is good. Now isn't that a good prescription for all our kids?

A sweet problem: Princeton researchers find that high-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain

Posted March 22, 2010; 10:00 a.m.

by Hilary Parker

A Princeton University research team has demonstrated that all sweeteners are not equal when it comes to weight gain: Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same. 

In addition to causing significant weight gain in lab animals, long-term consumption of high-fructose corn syrup also led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides. The researchers say the work sheds light on the factors contributing to obesity trends in the United States.

"Some people have claimed that high-fructose corn syrup is no different than other sweeteners when it comes to weight gain and obesity, but our results make it clear that this just isn't true, at least under the conditions of our tests," said psychology professor Bart Hoebel, who specializes in the neuroscience of appetite, weight and sugar addiction. "When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they're becoming obese -- every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don't see this; they don't all gain extra weight."

A Princeton University research team, including (from left) undergraduate Elyse Powell, psychology professor Bart Hoebel, visiting research associate Nicole Avena and graduate student Miriam Bocarsly, has demonstrated that rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup -- a sweetener found in many popular sodas -- gain significantly more weight than those with access to water sweetened with table sugar, even when they consume the same number of calories. The work may have important implications for understanding obesity trends in the United States. (Photo: Denise Applewhite) Photos for news media

In results published online March 18 by the journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior, the researchers from the Department of Psychology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute reported on two experiments investigating the link between the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup and obesity.

The first study showed that male rats given water sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup in addition to a standard diet of rat chow gained much more weight than male rats that received water sweetened with table sugar, or sucrose, in conjunction with the standard diet. The concentration of sugar in the sucrose solution was the same as is found in some commercial soft drinks, while the high-fructose corn syrup solution was half as concentrated as most sodas.

The second experiment -- the first long-term study of the effects of high-fructose corn syrup consumption on obesity in lab animals -- monitored weight gain, body fat and triglyceride levels in rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup over a period of six months. Compared to animals eating only rat chow, rats on a diet rich in high-fructose corn syrup showed characteristic signs of a dangerous condition known in humans as the metabolic syndrome, including abnormal weight gain, significant increases in circulating triglycerides and augmented fat deposition, especially visceral fat around the belly. Male rats in particular ballooned in size: Animals with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained 48 percent more weight than those eating a normal diet.

"These rats aren't just getting fat; they're demonstrating characteristics of obesity, including substantial increases in abdominal fat and circulating triglycerides," said Princeton graduate student Miriam Bocarsly. "In humans, these same characteristics are known risk factors for high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, cancer and diabetes." In addition to Hoebel and Bocarsly, the research team included Princeton undergraduate Elyse Powell and visiting research associate Nicole Avena, who was affiliated with Rockefeller University during the study and is now on the faculty at the University of Florida. The Princeton researchers note that they do not know yet why high-fructose corn syrup fed to rats in their study generated more triglycerides, and more body fat that resulted in obesity. 

When male rats were given water sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup in addition to a standard diet of rat chow, the animals gained much more weight than male rats that received water sweetened with table sugar, or sucrose, along with the standard diet. The concentration of sugar in the sucrose solution was the same as is found in some commercial soft drinks, while the high-fructose corn syrup solution was half as concentrated as most sodas, including the orange soft drink shown here. (Photo: Denise Applewhite)

High-fructose corn syrup and sucrose are both compounds that contain the simple sugars fructose and glucose, but there at least two clear differences between them. First, sucrose is composed of equal amounts of the two simple sugars -- it is 50 percent fructose and 50 percent glucose -- but the typical high-fructose corn syrup used in this study features a slightly imbalanced ratio, containing 55 percent fructose and 42 percent glucose. Larger sugar molecules called higher saccharides make up the remaining 3 percent of the sweetener. Second, as a result of the manufacturing process for high-fructose corn syrup, the fructose molecules in the sweetener are free and unbound, ready for absorption and utilization. In contrast, every fructose molecule in sucrose that comes from cane sugar or beet sugar is bound to a corresponding glucose molecule and must go through an extra metabolic step before it can be utilized.

This creates a fascinating puzzle. The rats in the Princeton study became obese by drinking high-fructose corn syrup, but not by drinking sucrose. The critical differences in appetite, metabolism and gene expression that underlie this phenomenon are yet to be discovered, but may relate to the fact that excess fructose is being metabolized to produce fat, while glucose is largely being processed for energy or stored as a carbohydrate, called glycogen, in the liver and muscles.

In the 40 years since the introduction of high-fructose corn syrup as a cost-effective sweetener in the American diet, rates of obesity in the U.S. have skyrocketed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 1970, around 15 percent of the U.S. population met the definition for obesity; today, roughly one-third of the American adults are considered obese, the CDC reported. High-fructose corn syrup is found in a wide range of foods and beverages, including fruit juice, soda, cereal, bread, yogurt, ketchup and mayonnaise. On average, Americans consume 60 pounds of the sweetener per person every year.

"Our findings lend support to the theory that the excessive consumption of high-fructose corn syrup found in many beverages may be an important factor in the obesity epidemic," Avena said.

The new research complements previous work led by Hoebel and Avena demonstrating that sucrose can be addictive, having effects on the brain similar to some drugs of abuse. 

In the future, the team intends to explore how the animals respond to the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in conjunction with a high-fat diet -- the equivalent of a typical fast-food meal containing a hamburger, fries and soda -- and whether excessive high-fructose corn syrup consumption contributes to the diseases associated with obesity. Another step will be to study how fructose affects brain function in the control of appetite.

The research was supported by the U.S. Public Health Service.

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This is why I prefer "Mexican" Coca-Cola. It's still made with sugar instead of corn syrup, and it has more of a bite to the flavor. You used to be able to find it at Costco (and it only comes in old-style bottles), but I haven't seen it there since Coke and Costco got into price dispute.

Anybody have a source for Mexican Coke?
Have you tried Pepsi "Throwback" made with sugar? Is it any good?

Thanks to John Roling for sharing this article on Facebook!

iStockphoto.com

MRSA: The Drug-Resistant 'Superbug' That Won't Die

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Superbug, a new book by journalist Maryn McKenna, tracks the spread of MRSA, the drug-resistant staph infection that seems to outwit every antibiotic thrown at it. McKenna explains how the bacteria has changed over the past 30 years — and how a vaccine may be the only way to stop it.

I washed my hands for the nth time and bleached my sink after listening to this piece on NPR. You will too, and that's a good thing. MRSA is nasty and more prevalent than we know. Once you've contracted it, the consequences are painful, if not life threatening, and eradication is very difficult. Prevention is our best hope for battling the staph bug. If we learn nothing else from this piece it is 3 things:
1. Wash your hands frequently.
2. Purel is your friend, and comes in convenient pocket sizes, too.
3. Shower after working out - contact sports and public gyms are both big transfer points.

The big news is that MRSA no longer needs a break or cut in your skin to get in to your system and wreak havoc. So if I'm preaching to the choir, good. There's more here you probably didn't know or haven't thought about.

There's a fascinating discussion of vaccine vs. antibiotic to protect against this stubborn and dangerous bug. With the sharp increase of patients contracting MRSA during labor and delivery, or any other hospital stay, it's common procedure to slip an antibiotic into your IV line. I would have preferred getting a MRSA vaccine when I was in the hospital giving birth rather than finding out I was allergic to Keflex - a popular pre-dosing antibiotic.

MRSA is rife in our food supply thanks to overuse of antibiotics as a way to induce growth in livestock. I wish I could regularly afford to buy meat, chicken and pork that's free of hormones and antibiotics. I wish I could find it regularly, too. Of course, I can cook meat til it's a charcoal briquette, but I prefer my steak medium rare, thank you. Of course, you can bleach your counters and food preparation surfaces frequently to eliminate the possibility of contracting MRSA from food transference. But are you really going to leave the bleach on the surface for several minutes? Every time? In the middle of cooking dinner? I didn't think so.

And the superbug's ability to jump between human to pet (and back!) is also eye-opening.

If you haven't run across this bug yet, personally, I'm sure you know someone who has. So take a listen or read the book, and don't forget to wash your hands...

I understand that health insurers need to keep costs down in order to keep our premiums low (and still make a profit). I just take issue with one of the ways they do it now - and I'm afraid the practice will become more rampant if insurers don't have to compete with a public option.

Have you ever called your insurance provider to confirm that a procedure or service is covered, only to have the claim rejected on a technicality after the service was rendered? It happens several times a year in our household, regardless of health insurer, and I'm sick of it.

I perform due diligence - Does my provider have a provider #/contract with the insurer? Yes. Is the service covered under my policy? Yes. Have I used up my annual limits for this service? No. So I'll get reimbursed for the service right? Hypothetically- Yes, Realistically - Not if they can help it. I've heard tell of standardized practices or "playbooks" insurers use to reject claims, and most tricks you wouldn't know about - until you've been burned.

In my next post, I'll start identifying obscure technicalities that I've experienced with insurers and the lessons I've learned during my quest to get claims paid. But seriously, we shouldn't have to outmaneuver our own health insurers in order to get legitimate treatments covered. From where I sit, insurers have created a hidden profit center by finding ways to avoid paying for covered services, yet they still complain about a rising cost burden. I can see the practice becoming more rampant without a public offering that policyholders can choose as an alternative to a bad status quo.

I really believe that a "public option" is one of the ways to keep insurers honest. And yes, we do need to understand what the term "public option" means and what the option will look like. But remember- we are talking about an OPTION, not a policy citizens are REQUIRED to use (a la socialized medicine). So how about keeping the public option on the table?

Check back for my next post, the first in a series of lessons learned: The 15 Technicalities Insurers Use to Reject Claims – How to Avoid Getting Burned.

Poison Control System Faces Closure

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Photo: Image Source

California's Poison Control System is on life support. The 24-7 operation lost half of its funding in the new state budget, and poison control officials say if they don't find an additional $6 million soon, the system will have to close. Reporter: Kenny Goldberg

1-800-222-1221. No matter where you live, if you don’t have this number written down by your phone, go do it NOW. I’ll wait…. I had a bit of a scare the other night that ended in a call to the Poison Control Hotline. I felt like an idiot calling them over what was likely a false alarm. I came away glad that I called. Coincidentally, NPR reported the next day how vital the 24-7 poison control service is to consumers, emergency rooms AND law enforcement, but since the California has slashed half of the funding for Poison Control in our state, the service may shut down in November. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.

In fact, Poison Control is one of the best public healthcare cost reducers available. According to NPR, every $1 spent on the hotline saves $7 in government healthcare costs. 20% of calls to Poison Control are from hospital emergency rooms, and another 5% are from law enforcement. Doctors call the hotline to quickly determine proper dosages for antidotes they use infrequently or to triage minor cases (like a child ingesting part of a poinsettia leaf – how much is toxic?). Police officers call to identify prescription drugs and other substances found on suspects.

My story: I had grabbed an old metal ice cream scoop out of a drawer – the kind with anti-freeze in the handle – and scooped some (fake) chocolate ice cream into a cup. I was so intent on getting a chocolate fix, it didn’t register that the scoop handle was oily until I’d already filled my cup and started eating.

I can’t eat real ice cream anymore, so I’m often on the lookout for decent fake stuff. I point this out because I’d nearly finished before I realized I was tasting more than the general disappointment of eating fake chocolate ice cream. Under the carob, I detected an off flavor that evoked a childhood memory of band-aids and Obtundia anti-bacterial ointment. ICK. I could also smell it on my hand – and the ice cream scoop still had some of clear viscous substance on the handle. Then came the “A-HA!” moment when I realized that I might have just ingested anti-freeze.

Did I call Poison Control right away? Nooooo. I didn’t want to be ridiculed for stupidity. I’m blonde, but I hate playing into the stereotype. So instead, I did a web search on anti-freeze. I even ended up on the poison control website. Everything I read said that ingesting even a small amount of anti-freeze can do permanent organ damage if you wait too long to be checked out (ACK!). But I knew anti-freeze also tastes sweet, not nasty, which is why kids and dogs often accidentally ingest it, so I still wasn’t sure if I was in danger.

After vacillating, I called and spoke to one of the nurses and pharmacists who staff the line. She was non-judgmental and incredibly sympathetic as she asked me questions about the substance and the scoop while searching her database. In the end, she was able to tell me that I probably had an ice cream scoop from Crate & Barrel who stopped using anti-freeze ten years ago. The level of detail the hotline operator had in her database was way beyond what can be found easily on the web. But the web searches may be what we’re left with if the California can’t get its act together or get federal matching funds to keep the Poison Control System running. Parents especially should be concerned about the shuttering of the service, but loss of the Poison Contol hotline effects all tax payers.

The hotline number (800-222-1221) is the same in most states, but I guarantee you won't remember it when you need to make the call. So did you post the phone number next to your phone? Better yet, go put it on speed dial.

...From a purely economic standpoint, insuring illegal immigrants makes a lot of sense—and not just for them, but for everyone.

Consider a few statistics. According to a July article in the American Journal of Public Health, immigrants typically arrive in America during their prime working years and tend to be younger and healthier than the rest of the U.S. population. As a result, health-care expenditures for the average immigrant are 55 percent lower than for a native-born American citizen with similar characteristics. With the ratio of seniors to workers projected to increase by 67 percent between 2010 and 2030, it stands to reason that including the relatively healthy, relatively employable and largely uninsured illegal population in some sort of universal health-care system would be a boon rather than a burden. "Insurance in principle has to cover the average medical cost of all the people it's serving," explains Leighton Ku, a professor of health policy at George Washington University. "So if you add cheaper people to the pool, like immigrants, you reduce the average cost." More undocumented workers, in other words, means lower premiums for everyone.

The actuarial advantages don't end there. As it is now, undocumented workers (and others) who can't pay their way receive free emergency and charitable care—a service that costs those of us with health insurance an additional $1,000 per year, as Obama noted. But if illegals were covered, this hidden tax would decrease, further lowering our premiums and "relieving some of the financial burden on state and local governments," says Harold Pollack, a University of Chicago professor who specializes in poverty and public health. What's more, employers currently have a clear economic incentive to hire undocumented immigrants: they don't require coverage. A plan that mandates insurance for native workers but not their illegal counterparts actually makes life harder on the blue-collar Americans competing for jobs (and railing against immigrants) because it means that hiring them will cost more than hiring a recent transplant from Mexico City. As The Washington Post's Ezra Klein recently explained, "If you're really worried about the native-born workforce, what you want to do is minimize the differences in labor costs between different types of workers. A health care policy that enlarges those differences—that makes documented workers more expensive compared to undocumented workers—is actually worse for the documented workers."

At this point, you're probably wondering whether taxpayers would have to foot a bigger bill for these newly insured illegals. Not necessarily—at least in theory. As Obama said in Wednesday's speech, "Like any private insurance company, the public insurance option would have to be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects" to fund whatever care it provides. Given that many undocumented workers leave the country before they're old enough to require much medical care, says Phillip Longman of the New America Foundation, "you could set up the system in a way that that they wind up contributing as much or more than they receive" in low-income subsidies, especially when the "offsetting savings of lower emergency-room use" are factored in.

But despite the potential economic upside, the right shouldn't stress: America won't insure its illegal immigrants any time soon. "The hard thing here is that the current state of perception on immigration is eroding our sense of social solidarity," says Longman, who believes, like the rest of the experts quoted in this story, that covering undocumented workers is both politically and logistically impractical. "People simply don't want money going to people on the other side of the tracks." That pretty much explains why Obama was so determined to clear up the confusion—and why Joe Wilson was so determined to keep it alive. Never mind that our wallets would be better off if Wilson were right. Money, after all, isn't everything—even in politics.

Find this article at http://www.newsweek.com/id/215340

'nuff said. But do check out the Non Sequitur comic strip from Friday, September 25, 2009. Unfortunately, due to copyright issues I can't post the strip itself, but you can find it at: http://www.arcamax.com/nonsequitur/s-616500-775025

It's worth the jump.

Wait a Second. Why Shouldn’t We Insure Illegals?

Insuring undocumented immigrants might be unpopular, but it would be good for the economy.

By Andrew Romano | Newsweek Web Exclusive 

Sep 14, 2009

Call it the shout heard round the world. Since last Wednesday, when Rep. Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, interrupted Barack Obama's big speech on health-care reform to shout "You lie!," Beltway bloviators have bloviated about little else. Wilson's vulgarity. Wilson’s apology. Wilson's "dirty health-care secret". Wilson's charming effort to make American politics more British.

And that's just at NEWSWEEK.

Few of us, however, have actually bothered to address the issue that provoked Wilson's outburst: health insurance for illegal immigrants. The line he objected to—"The reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally"—is, in fact, not a "lie." The current House bill makes it very clear that "individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States" will not be allowed to receive subsidies. To wrangle assistance, illegal aliens would have to commit identity fraud, something that rarely happens in our current public-health-care system (a.k.a. Medicare). And Democratic senators have just announced that they'll require those who participate to show proof of citizenship. So it's a nonissue.

But let's just assume, for argument's sake, that we all live in Wilsonville, where Obama is the lying liar his critics allege him to be—the sort of psycho who has chosen to sacrifice his political future on the flaming pyre of anti-immigrant sentiment by concocting a secret scheme to cover the nation's estimated 11.9 million illegals. Would that really be so bad?

Of course, insuring undocumented workers is ethically murky and politically impossible. Some people argue that if we're hiring illegals to, say, shingle our roofs, we have a moral obligation to care for them if they fall off. But more people, it seems, simply want them out of the country. Given that illegal immigrants have, by definition, broken our laws, it makes sense that large numbers of upstanding citizens oppose any measure that would encourage more foreigners to sneak into America or make their lives easier once they're here.

The only problem? From a purely economic standpoint, insuring illegal immigrants makes a lot of sense—and not just for them, but for everyone.

I've often wondered about the guy who fell through our roof. I don't know whether the man whose leg dangled through a hole in the ceiling over my kitchen table was a day laborer or fully employed by the company subcontracted to remove the shingles from our roof (WE did NOT hire him directly). But I do know that:
a. he narrowly missing having his leg hacked off by the ceiling fan,
b. the ceiling joist he landed on - crotch first - prevented him from falling all the way through the ceiling and onto my kitchen table, and
c. he spoke little English but swore he was uninjured, then promptly disappeared on a "break."

I often wonder:
a. what would have happened if he'd fallen six inches closer to the ceiling fan (how do you remove blood from the ceiling?),
b. if straddling the joist ended any chance that the man would ever have children, and
c. did he really walk away unscathed, or did he later end up in an emergency room with serious internal injuries that could have been mitigated with immediate treatment?

Whether or not the man was an illegal immigrant, he certainly deserved treatment for his injuries. The bare slats under the shingles had knotholes that this guy, and another - albeit white - worker, didn't see until it was too late. The other guy only went in to his ankle, by the way. But I digress.

You can be sure if the guy that fell through really was injured, whether minor or career ending, he didn't seek treatment. Housing contractors already tell their workers NOT to say an injury was sustained on the job because it will raise the company workman's comp premiums. And day laborers won't admit to an injury because it could prevent them from ever being hired again by the contractor, and a repeat hire is what all day laborers hope for.

So here's a thought - if an illegal worker is injured on the job and doesn't/can't seek treatment covered by their employer, "from a purely economic standpoint," isn't that creating MORE burden on the U.S. economically? Someone is going to do the morally right thing and take the injured person to an emergency room where the bill lands on taxpayers. ... but more at issue, what is so wrong about adding otherwise healthy people to insurance roles and spreading out the burden of cost? See the rest of the article in part 2 of the post, it's a novel and logical perspective - never mind the morally right thing to do.