You may not agree with his answers, but at least Robert Kennedy Jr. is asking the right questions.
Kennedy is President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services. On Wednesday and Thursday, Kennedy testified before two Senate committees. He wanted to focus on America’s deteriorating health. In his opening statement, he talked about the rise in obesity, diabetes, cancer and mental health conditions.
“A healthy person has a thousand dreams; a sick person has only one,” Kennedy said. “Today, over half of our countrymen and women are chronically ill.”
He continued, “For a long time, the nation has been locked in a divisive health-care debate about who pays. When health care costs reach 20 percent of our GDP, there are no good options — only bad ones.”
Lowering costs requires getting a handle on chronic diseases.
“The CDC says that 90 percent of health care spending goes toward managing chronic disease,” Kennedy said.
This is why Kennedy has supporters on both sides of the political divide, especially among moms. Once you hear it put like this, there’s an obvious need to answer this question: Why are Americans sicker than ever?
One reason is that Americans have terrible health habits. Eating vegetables and exercising more will improve your health, regardless of what happens with food dyes.
But that doesn’t explain the explosion of childhood diseases over the past few decades. One in 36 kids has autism. One in six children between 3 and 17 years old has a developmental disability. Childhood cancer is on the rise. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the number of children with Type 2 diabetes might increase 700 percent by 2060.
In some cases, as with autism, self-proclaimed experts don’t have an answer. In other cases, as with peanut allergies, experts exacerbated the problem.
“By recommending that children avoid exposure to peanuts until age 3, doctors inadvertently turned a rare issue into a major health problem,” Marty Makary, now Trump’s nominee for FDA commissioner, wrote in 2024.
Oops. Rather than adopt an attitude of humility, America’s Chicken Little elites claim the sky is falling when Kennedy suggests heterodox ideas. They miss the obvious point. If the status quo were working, there would be no need to look for answers outside the conventional wisdom. For example, Kennedy believes the country’s chronic disease epidemic is “related to toxins in the environment.”
But Democrats weren’t interested in this conversation. They spent much of their time attacking him for his past statements and vaccine skepticism.
One hilarious moment came Wednesday when an irate Sen. Bernie Sanders pointed to a picture of baby clothes and screamed, “Are you supportive of these onesies?”
This is political theater. For decades, Kennedy was a Democrat in good standing who hailed from the country’s most famous Democrat family. Barack Obama even considered appointing him to lead the EPA. The same Democrats who attacked him this week would have voted for him in a heartbeat if Obama had nominated him.
In a healthier political climate, making America healthy again wouldn’t be a partisan issue.
Contact Victor Joecks at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on X.
