[Erin]

I am of two minds about this issue.

1) like other people who've posted here, I think it's kind of creepy that Big Brother is watching my HbA1c. (well actually he's not, I go to the endo in New Jersey)

2) Diabetes education, care, and medical support is SORELY lacking in NYC, particularly in the poorer areas where type 2 is running rampant these days. (Old saying: Q: how can you tell if you're in a ghetto? A: KFC stands for Kennedy Fried Chicken (generic chicken place), and there is a McDonalds every two blocks.) So it's good that the local government wants to do SOMETHING because it's not JUST a matter of people not following their health care plan, sometimes it's people not knowing what they should be doing, or not taking enough oral medication and / or insulin because they can't afford to buy it, and don't have the knowledge they need to access Medicaid or other assistance programs. Or they simply don't have the resources to even eat properly. (a lot of you are going, yeah right... how hard is it? but let me tell you, in this city healthy food goes at a premium. Even getting decent vegetables requires a trip to the organic vegetable store or a farmers market, which simply cost too much. The ONLY place you can get affordable vegetables which are palatable is in Chinatown and you kind of have to know where to look even there.) AND all the "diabetic meal plans" that are commonly recommended by docs are very Euro-Centric, and the Latino and African-American patients (being hardest hit by T2 these days) look at the doc and go "yeah, right."

That said, I think the funding they are using to track diabetes patients could be better spent on free diabetes clinics in at-risk neighborhoods. Even bi or tri lingual education campaigns would help. But, humans are nosy, and we feel we need to get in everybody's business and tell them how to live their life... rather than step back and try to help folks make it work the way they see fit.