First error preventative medicine means less medical care.

Don’t get me wrong preventative medicine is a good thing, it improves the quality of life for those who strive to maintain their health; But, does it reduce the costs of health care? It many times does prevent aliments. We certainly know, if we cook food properly the risk of getting sick goes down. We can often tie illnesses to a cause that was preventable; even though the cause may not alway make one ill.

But does it actually reduce costs? Does being healthy today mean that you will not get ill next year? To reduce cost by being healthy, is to say, healthy people need less medical care. However here it the catch; the preventative care was already given; medical care was given to a healthy person, that is not less care. It is a good thing for a healthy person to stay healthy; but this is not a direct reduction of services or costs.

There is another catch; While we can tie illnesses to a cause that was preventable, we can not with certainty turn that statement around and say, “Eliminating abortion will eliminate breast cancer.” It is a little more complicated. Abortions increase the risk of breast cancer but does not alway have that out come. Eating undercooked food increases the risk of illness but does not always make one sick. In other words the preventative health care given may not have accomplished the goal of preventing someone from getting ill, because they were the one who was to be that statistic that person who had and abortion but did not get cancer.

It is the statistics of those who don’t get ill that both makes the recommendations given by the doctor hard for the patient to follow in the first place and this statistic that also means that the doctor gives unneeded treatments.

The second error is that being healthy does not mean one is not going to become ill at a later date.

Only a minority of people have chronic conditions, the majority who have health insurance, are not ill today. they realize that because they are healthy now does not mean they will remain healthy tomorrow or in their senior years.

Platitudes about the virtues of preventative health does not prevent one from becoming ill in their senior years. These same statements could be made about extending the life span of people – but it would be an error to say people would no longer need to plan for their deaths. Consider the platitudes about mercury filled light bulbs that will save the planet. Have these light bulbs that when broken fill the room with dangerous levels of mercury, (a substance know to damage the immune system) actually saved the planet? No they have not.

Cutting senior care based on the platitudes that we are going to make everybody healthy today and they will not need health care later; Is the same as saying only unhealthy people need health insurance. It means we will not provide the level of services that they are getting today. What needs to be corrected is that they are not getting all the help they need. The solution is not to provide less.