Should Food Stamps Promote Health?
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Fifteen percent of Americans are on Food Stamps. That`s 47 million Americans, and starting tomorrow they`re going to see cuts, big cuts. A family of four getting the maximum benefit of $668 a month. They get a reduction of $36 a month. The old left-right, Democrat-Republican, conservative-liberal arguments are getting super tired. And they`re not really addressing the bottom line, underlying problems that our systems are broken and sick, and those systems are making us sick. You have children?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: And you are part of the Food Stamp program?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: And you would like to see it revised and...</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Exactly. Change it so that we can eat healthy and get the nutrients that we`re supposed to get.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Beer, wine, liquor, cigarettes, tobacco, they are not allowed under Food Stamps. But you know what is allowed? Soft drinks, candy, cookies, bakery cakes. Is there a problem with how the Food Stamp system operates, given that we have a massive obesity problem in this country?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There`s a huge problem. People use Food Stamps to go out and buy chips and all that processed food that most of them are buying. Then it`s not solving the problem. It`s increasing it.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: If it would require a sacrifice like cutting out the sugary drinks and saying you can`t buy sodas with Food Stamps, you`d be willing to make that sacrifice?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, yes I would.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: If people are eating food that`s making them sick and there`s a way to use a Food Stamp program to encourage people to eat healthier, to encourage them to eat more fruits, vegetables, nuts and grains and get healthier, wouldn`t that save taxpayers money ultimately by reducing health-care costs?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely. For example, many of the diseases that people are suffering from are diet-related diseases. Now, for example, my coalition, in New York School PS-244, the school has gone all vegetarian. We have created a completely vegetarian has gone all vegetarian. We`ve created a vegetarian menu. And in one year, their BMIs, their body mass index, has gone down.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Wouldn`t it be nice if we could do that for all the millions of people who want -- I believe they want healthier options? There`s a program to get farmers` markets to accept Food Stamps so that we can bring fruits, vegetables, nuts and grains into low-income neighborhoods. They often don`t have the choice to make a healthy choice. That`s got to change. The government could do that and save billions of dollars. On the other side, on the health-care side. Nobody is talking about that. We are. On the other side, a doctor faces murder charges in the death of his wife. Will his daughters ultimately be the ones who put him behind bars?</s>ALEXIS MACNEILL, DAUGHTER OF VICTIM: Ever since the day my mom died, I -- I was concerned that my father killed her. I just knew it was all staged, you know. He`s an actor, and he orchestrated this murder.