Schweikert Vouches for RFK, Jr. in Op-Ed, 'We Finance Unhealthy Living'

Representative David Schweikert (R-AZ) penned an op-ed for USA Today vouching for the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as President Donald Trump's Secretary of Health and Human Services. He said that Kennedy "has a rare quality among public officials today—he embraces math."

Rep. Schweikert began by discussing how America's high obesity rates and low fertility rates are "not only killing Americans but our nation's finances as well." 

In other words, high spending on healthcare drives up the national debt, which already sits at $36 trillion, and obesity is a major killer of young Americans, more so than fentanyl and other opioids.

"Something incredibly immoral is happening in our country, and we must face the hard truth that it is being driven, in part, by our own government policies. We have incentivized leaving the workforce. We finance unhealthy living," Rep. Schweikert ominously warned.

However, the Arizona Congressman placed his faith in RFK, Jr. because he "has a rare quality among public officials today – he embraces math," pointing to his awareness that 60% of American adults have a chronic condition and "wants to remedy the up to $11 trillion loss to our GDP over a decade that comes from chronic diseases."

"Maybe the most powerful thing we can do to keep from burying our grandchildren and great-grandchildren in piles of debt would be to work on policies that will make us a healthier country," Schweikert continued.

The Arizona Congressman discussed healthcare and its relationship with the national debt with Cactus Politics in March, describing how aging demographics require more healthcare, yet "it is hard getting in front of an audience and explaining it is interest and healthcare, and that healthcare is Medicare."

He later said that to improve America's health, "We need to think much more creatively and much differently and stop pretending that this sort of government model is the solution. Instead, it turns out that it actually comes through technology and incentives."