This is just a pretext to reduce food stamp payments. Conservatives have used this rhetoric since the 90s to attack food stamp payments. “Welfare queens are buying STEAK with your tax dollars!”

And the overwhelming majority of antidepressants are prescribed on a voluntary basis, eg the people taking them are choosing to do so because they feel there is not a more viable option for them. There is a whole essay on why this is the case but just some key points: therapy is really expensive (often a therapist costs almost as much as a psychiatrist except it’s a weekly visit instead of monthly), effective therapy requires a lot of active buy in and effort that people often don’t have the bandwidth required to contribute due to external factors like oppressive work or family life, therapy requires a time investment, stigma, etc. essentially overprescribing is a side effect of massive systemic issues

So do you address any of these systemic issues? Do you address any of the issues related to the western diet being loaded with sugar and other carbs, that we have huge swaths of residential areas with no proper grocery stores around throughout a great deal of the US, or that our environments are so structured around cars that we walk like 50 feet a week, etc?

Nah, just create more financial stress for poor people who eat like all of us (eg, like shit). Punitive approach 100% of the time!

How about increasing the amount of ebt funds for people who do not buy an excessive amount of empty calorie food and drink? Create a base amount of funds that everyone gets and increase the amount by 2.5% for every 25% of funds used that are dedicated to “healthy foods”. So if you buy only “healthy foods” you get an extra 10% of your ebt allotment, and if you buy nothing but junk then you aren’t penalized (unless of course you count not getting the reward, I guess). But this isn’t punitive so americans hate it

Or maybe make regulations that any grocery store that opens more that 20 stores is required to maintain at least 1 store per 20 in an underserved area that will not be profitable. Adjust the regulation actively of course so that whole foods doesn’t just become 800 separate stores to circumvent the regulation or whatever. But this means that corporations have to do something to enrich communities at the expense of constant profits so americans hate it

Or any of the obvious shit people have gone on about for ages. Nationalized health care, shorter work weeks with improved wages, workers getting equitable shares of companies, robust pensions, unions, etc. but americans are brain washed to think this is commie bullshit