Think preventive medicine will save money? Think again

All preventive as well as therapeutic interventions can be examined for their cost-benefit ratio. So I don't see the point in this article. Essentially private insurers are not interested in investing on preventive care because the benefits come late. Preventive care should focus on the long-term benefits, which has the disadvantage of the 'discounting' factor. But for personal health itself, prevention is always a lot better than treatment.

I find it hard to believe that the U.S.A. doesn't have a national health service.

Surely this is a basic requirement for any civilisation.

NedinJapan: I agree with you! completely. I think that it is important for people to try to take control of their own health. That means eating better, getting plenty of excercise and living in as healthy of an environment as possible.

When it comes to screening people for cancers or giving people preventive medication, I am all for it. Insurance companies seem to think that it is ok to go without cancer screenings but one of my friends was lucky enough to have her cancer diagnosed through a regular check up and she was able to beat it. She wasn't in an at risk group, but the screening caught it. I hope insurance companies can look beyond the percentages when the testing in non-invasive and non-risk.

You can prepare/give preventative care all you want, but when coca-cola, french fries, greasy pizza and burgers are not OFF the breakfast/lunch/dinner menu, no amount of preventative care will help.

Insurance companies are not there to provide health, they are in business and they want to make money. If they manage to convince lawmakers that the screenings are not really helpful, they will safe tons of money, or does someone actually believe the savings will be passed on to the insured and the premiums will be lowered? The next item on that bill are the prices for medicine that is sold for "preventive" purposes, which, as even this article admits, are usually useless. Again, the prices of those products are set by the pharma companies and so they are very profitable. Which political party would you guess, will go against such donors? Pharmaceutical companies rank second in donatioos to political parties only worldwide, behind financial institutions....

@Bertie Wooster, I cannot see the contradiction between those two statement you made? Please explain

Bertie, the USA are a confederacy not a civilisation...or is it confederation, not a civilizacy ?

Please explain

Money doesn't buy common sense. Many article refer to US experience as if that was necessarily the world most advanced everything.

screening for hypertension and for some cancers

Surely anything that is not remedy when you're already sick is labeled as preventive medicine, but there are 2 unrelated things. Taking your temperature, screen, etc... is just measuring. That will never make less people getting sick. . Eating your greens, is actual preventive medicine. It does avoid people get sick... if that works. At least, there are more chances of improvement if you replace that donut by a carrot than if you step on your Tanita Healthmeter 3 times a day.