Actor and musician Steven Van Zandt claims that the Obamacare law is mostly worthless because it doesn’t address America’s sedentary lifestyles and poor dietary practices.
Van Zandt is best known for his role as Tony Soprano’s right-hand man on The Sopranos and as the guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. He now stars as gangster Frank Tagliano in the Netflix original series Lilyhammer , which is filmed in Norway. Season two of Lilyhammer just premiered on Netflix.
He gave his views on Obamacare in a HuffPostLive interview (see embed above). Van Zandt described himself as an independent who shares many of Springsteen’s left-liberal views.
Van Zandt expressed annoyance that the politicians wasted two years (actually more) talking about healthcare “when we should be talking about heath.” He insisted that the country is having the wrong conversation about the wrong subject.
Continued Van Zandt: “I spend six months a year in Norway… Healthcare’s free in Norway because everybody’s healthy.”
There are few things in Obamacare that are “nice” and will help some people, Van Zandt admitted, “but mostly it’s almost worthless… because we need to be talking about health… We have two out of three people obese in this country. Why is that? We’re a little bit lazy, we don’t exercise enough. Maybe we eat too much, but that’s not really the reason.”
Van Zandt insisted that proper nutrition should be the focus: “The reason is the preservatives and additives and steroids, all this gluten and every other junk that’s in our food. We take care of that and then we start talking about healthcare. Let’s get this under control. Let’s get our health under control.”
Separately, a new AP poll indicates that about half of those Americans with employer-based insurance expect their coverage to change next year, and mostly for the worse, in terms of higher premiums and increased deductibles and co-pays.
Do you agree with Steven Van Zandt that Obamacare amounts to merely a band aid on a pervasive healthcare crisis?
[thumbnail image credit: Frantogian ]
