America is facing a crisis in obesity and diabetes that was only exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Cactus Politics sat down with Representative David Schweikert (R-AZ) to discuss how the government can encourage Americans to live healthier lives, which he said would require “technology and incentives,” although we must also “stop pretending that this sort of government model is the solution.”

Rep. Schweikert did acknowledge the usage of drugs such as Ozempic, but “you do not just walk in and say, ‘stick a semaglutide in my tummy.’ You do something much bolder and much more across the board.”

For example, he pointed out how Pokemon Go, which launched in 2016, proved far more effective in encouraging young people to get outside and exercise “than anything we have done in a quarter century. And it was not government, it was a game. 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.”

The conversation shifted to how a healthy population means a healthier economy.

“The math has been remarkable. And you actually see Goldman Sachs doing models saying at the end of the decade, [Gross Domestic Product] will be bigger because you have more Americans who are healthier, who can engage in family formation, who will be able to participate in the economy,” Rep. Schweikert continued.

Moreover, with obesity being the chief killer of prime-age males instead of the projected fentanyl, “just the basic morality of the effects that if you take on diabetes and take on obesity, what it does for income inequality, labor force participation, family formation, and just being able to participate in society, I think you need to think about now is, ‘is that just the semaglutide, or is that just saying, ‘we are going to do everything,’ whether it be from the healthy exercise to- we have now the new hormonal drugs to this and that. I believe you do everything, and it is the single biggest thing you can do for your sovereign debt.”

With more Americans dying than being born and requiring more healthcare, Schweikert has a point.