Let’s face it—America is getting fatter, and it's no accident. The obesity epidemic in the United States is not simply a result of poor personal choices; it’s a byproduct of a system built on profit rather than people. Big Healthcare, Big Pharma, and Big Food have created a vicious cycle where they profit from our illness, not our wellness. We’ve become part of a system that thrives on keeping us sick, making us “consumers” of everything from cheap, unhealthy food to endless medications and expensive healthcare services.

Imagine a scenario where the sicker you are, the more valuable you are to these industries. It’s almost like we’re cattle, being fattened up for slaughter, with every pound gained and every pill swallowed adding to the bottom line of these corporations. The relationship between profit and sickness is undeniable—the more we consume, the more they earn.

But is there a better way? Yes. The solution lies in a Medicare for All model that incentivizes a free-market approach to innovation while still being publicly financed. This shift could turn healthcare from a business of disease management to one of true health promotion.

How Big Food, Big Pharma, and Big Healthcare Are Fattening Us Up for Profit

Big Food: Pushing Cheap, Addictive Calories

Big Food is in the business of selling calories—preferably ones that are cheap, tasty, and addictive. For decades, food manufacturers have been perfecting the art of making processed foods more palatable and less nutritious. By loading products with sugar, fat, and refined carbohydrates, they create hyper-palatable foods that drive our brain’s reward centers wild.

Profiting Off Addiction: The average American consumes 152 pounds of sugar and 133 pounds of flour annually. Processed foods make up about 60% of our calorie intake, and these foods are designed to be addictive【source: Hyman, 2020】.
Driving Obesity and Chronic Disease: The overconsumption of these foods contributes directly to the obesity crisis, which in turn drives up rates of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. And who benefits from all this? The same food companies that created the problem, along with the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries that get to treat the resulting illnesses.

Big Pharma: Profiting From Our Chronic Conditions

Pharmaceutical companies don’t make money from healthy people. They profit when we need more pills to manage the consequences of our lifestyle choices—many of which are driven by Big Food’s marketing and product offerings.

Treating Symptoms, Not Causes: Drugs for obesity-related conditions like diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease are among the most profitable medications on the market. In 2020 alone, Americans spent over $55 billion on diabetes drugs【source: CDC】.
Encouraging Long-Term Dependency: The pharmaceutical industry has little incentive to promote cures. Instead, they develop medications that manage symptoms, often leading to lifelong dependency. From GLP-1 drugs for weight loss to statins for cholesterol, these medications rarely address the root cause—poor nutrition and lifestyle. They simply help people live longer while still being sick.

Big Healthcare: The Business of Disease Management

Our healthcare system is set up to manage disease, not prevent it. Hospitals and insurance companies generate more revenue when people are admitted for heart attacks, diabetes complications, and other chronic illnesses that are largely preventable.

Higher Profits from Sicker Patients: The healthcare industry thrives on high-utilizing patients. The more tests, medications, surgeries, and treatments needed, the more they profit. This creates an inverse relationship: the sicker the population, the higher the healthcare industry’s profits.
Reactive, Not Proactive: Most healthcare providers operate on a fee-for-service model, which means they’re compensated based on the volume of services provided, not on improving patient outcomes. This encourages reactive, rather than proactive, care—treating complications rather than preventing them.

The Solution: Medicare for All with Incentives for Innovation

The solution to this systemic problem is not to simply introduce more drugs or better healthcare plans—it’s to change the very way we think about healthcare. Enter **Medicare for All**, but with a twist: integrate free-market principles to drive innovation while maintaining a publicly financed system.

Medicare for All: Ensuring Universal Access

Why It’s Needed: A Medicare for All model would provide universal access to healthcare, ensuring that everyone, regardless of income, has the opportunity to receive medical care, preventive services, and education on healthy living.
How It Works: The model would be publicly funded, meaning it’s paid for through taxes rather than direct payments, premiums, or copays. This eliminates the financial barrier to accessing healthcare and promotes equitable treatment for all Americans.

Incentivizing Prevention Over Treatment

Why It’s Crucial: Under the current model, there’s no financial incentive for hospitals, doctors, or pharmaceutical companies to prevent disease. But with Medicare for All, we can shift the focus to value-based care—where providers are rewarded for improving patient health and preventing illness, rather than for the number of treatments they provide.
How It Works: Providers could be incentivized through bonuses for reducing obesity rates, reversing diabetes, or lowering hospital readmissions. This would encourage healthcare providers to invest in prevention programs, nutrition education, and wellness initiatives that tackle the root causes of chronic disease.

Integrating Free-Market Innovation

Why It’s Necessary: One of the criticisms of a Medicare for All model is that it might stifle innovation. But this doesn’t have to be the case. By incorporating free-market principles, we can still encourage private companies to develop better, more effective programs and treatments.
How It Works: Allow private companies to compete for government contracts based on their ability to improve health outcomes, not just cut costs. For example, companies could develop programs for reversing type 2 diabetes, managing insulin resistance, or improving mental health. These programs would be funded based on measurable results, not simply their ability to reduce immediate expenses.

The Bottom Line: Reclaiming Our Health

Americans are not inherently unhealthy—we’ve been manipulated into becoming heavy consumers of the products that make Big Food, Big Pharma, and Big Healthcare rich. The solution isn’t to keep putting band-aids on the problem; it’s to change the system. Medicare for All, combined with incentives for real health outcomes, could be the key to breaking the cycle of profit-driven healthcare.

It’s time to move beyond a system that profits from sickness. Let’s create a healthcare system that truly values wellness, prevention, and long-term health.

Want to learn more about taking control of your health? Start by taking our free health risk assessment, which can help you understand your current health status and how to make informed, proactive choices for a healthier future.

References:

Hyman, M. (2020). Food Fix: How to Save Our Health, Our Economy, Our Communities, and Our Planet--One Bite at a Time.
CDC. (2020). Diabetes Costs and Spending in the United States.
Harvard Public Health Review. (2019). The Role of Big Pharma in the American Obesity Crisis.

The Truth Behind America’s Obesity Crisis: How Big Healthcare, Big Pharma, and Big Food Profit While We Pay the Price