>>> By "speculate" I mean it didn't demonstrably improve health, but the authors speculate that maybe it will later. It's a fair assumption. Treating an illnes

>>> By "speculate" I mean it didn't demonstrably improve health, but the authors speculate that maybe it will later. It's a fair assumption. Treating an illness with the approved medicine that worked well in the past tends to work in the future too. It takes a lot of mental gymnastics to dismiss both increased diagnoses and treatment as anything but conclusive. >>> Try to follow the discussion. We were originally discussing the statement "You have a concern - you go to the doctor" It doesn't matter what the original point is, I was strictly replying to what you said, with quotes. Are you following? >>> Your own source - a political op-ed published in a medical journal, disagrees with this claim: The quote you posted really isn't. It says some save money, some don't. I gave examples what the study found to be cost effective, while the majority were not. Sometimes the answer is not black and white. >>> Telling people to stop smoking and being obese != "you have a concern - you go to the doctor". Isn't? Free-at-the-point-of-use obviously does increase usage of services, meaning people will be told to stop smoking more often. Those two concept are directly linked. >>> Your article says we need to carefully target which interventions are worthwhile, cut the ones that aren't, and refocus on the underused ones that are. That's not disagreeing with me at all! Again, isn't? It clearly says some interventions are worthwhile and some not. So let me get me straight, you think that if giving away nicotine replacement drugs is costing more money than cancer treatment, we should stop telling people to stop smoking?