But why do I keep taking shots at the breath-taking girth of “the famously outsized filmmaker,” as the L.A. Times recently referred to Moore? In America, what he eats is his choice. That is, for now. Fully socializing medicine will bring about a new set of problems that are far more threatening than just “access to health care.” Socialized health insurance concentrates power into the hands of politicians and bureaucrats, and it opens the door to ever more government intrusion into other aspects of our lives.

Michael Moore is grossly overweight. Some experts claim that obesity is an epidemic that is imposing a heavy, and unnecessary, burden on our health care system. According to the Centers for Disease Control, obesity leads to myriad health problems including heart disease, some types of cancer, and stroke. Medical expenses attributed to overweight and obese people, says the CDC, “accounted for 9.1 percent of total U.S. medical expenditures in 1998 and may have reached as high as $78.5 billion ($92.6 billion in 2002 dollars). Approximately half of these costs were paid by [the government-run health insurance programs] Medicaid and Medicare.”

If we are all on the financial hook for Michael’s aggressive eating habits in a socialized health care system, it seems like the rest of us must get a say in what he eats. After all, under a government “global budget” for healthcare spending, every extra cheese pizza Michael Moore downs today may someday result in a denial of care for your truly ill child waiting in line for “free” health care.

I can imagine a new federal agency, perhaps within Homeland Security, assigned the job of enforcing “good” dietary habits on suspicious eaters – like Michael Moore. Maybe Mike’s buddy Fidel Castro knows how to make this work. As far as I can tell, the only fat people in communist Cuba are part of the political class. The rest of the Cuban people are just hungry.