Monday, December 4, 2006

Medical Spending - Prevent or Cure?

The argument continues - the preventive medicine dollar vs. the curative medicine dollar, but is it really so easy to pit one against the other, so to speak?

Even prevention is becoming very expensive - just consider where we are going with advanced scanners, ultrasound, implanted pacemaker devices, etc. - all of which are preventive tools. Mammograms and PSA measurements are also not cheap!

The problem is not just prevention vs. cure, but the rapidly expanding costs of both strategies. If a child had suddenly collapsed from some unkown heart problem, I'm sure the parent would be grateful for the availability of needed pacemakers or left ventricular assist devices, both of which would fall into the rather expensive 'curative' category!

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