While some disease-prevention programs do produce net savings,
such as childhood immunizations and counseling adults about
using baby aspirin to prevent cardiovascular disease, most
preventive care does not save money, says an article by Reuters
Following the release yesterday of a new report from Trust for
America's Health (TFAH) that calls for putting more resources
into preventive care, economic experts challenged TFAH's
position on preventive care's role in reducing health care
spending. (See related article posted in News Now tilted "TFAH
Releases Strategies to Improve Nation's Health in 4 Years.")
"Preventive care is more about the right thing to do" because it
spares people the misery of illness, economist Austin Frakt of
Boston University told Reuters. "But it's not plausible to think
you can cut health care spending through preventive care. This
is widely misunderstood." 2010 study in Health Affairs, for
instance, calculated that if 90% of the US population used
proven preventive services, more than