Mike Bloomberg Seems to be Inspiring Tory Health Policy. Which is a Problem.

If there’s one thing Team* Spectator agrees upon it is, I think, that Tory health policy is utterly inadequate and desperately confused. One especially problematic promise, however, is the notion that what we need is a Department of Public Health. How will this work? Well, the inspiration would seem to be Mayor Mike Bloomberg in New York City. This is not Good News:

First New York City required restaurants to cut out trans fat. Then it made restaurant chains post calorie counts on their menus. Now it wants to protect people from another health scourge: salt. On Monday, the Bloomberg administration plans to unveil a broad new health initiative aimed at encouraging food manufacturers and restaurant chains across the country to curtail the amount of salt in their products. The plan, for which the city claims support from health agencies in other cities and states, sets a goal of reducing the amount of salt in packaged and restaurant food by 25 percent over the next five years.