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But of course it saves money.. on the long run. Yes, it does cost more upfront, and yes, people will be using the 'free doctor' more, in the short term, but ove
by laci27 9y ago
But of course it saves money.. on the long run.
Yes, it does cost more upfront, and yes, people will be using the 'free doctor' more, in the short term, but over the lifetime of the patient, it costs considerable less to prevent, than to 'fix'. Of course, you could say that people who 'suddenly' need fixing will live less, so overall the state will save money cause they will be dead sooner, but i'm pretty sure that's NOT the point of healthcare.
- Hermel 9y agoOf course, there is always a trade-off. For example, it is not worth spending 100$ for a 1% reduction in the risk of getting a disease that costs 1000$ to cure. If you really believe that prevention always pays off, why aren't you wearing a helmet right now?
- nolok 9y agoVery poor exemple. Him not wearing a helmet right now has nothing do to with costs, its about practicality and societal norms. Even on construction sites we had to makes laws saying it is mandatory or big fines to get people to wear them.
- Hermel 9y agoNot all cost is of monetary nature. Wearing a helmet costs you comfort, agility, and time. That's why we only do it when the risks outweigh the costs. Which is exactly the point: sometimes the risks outweigh the costs of prevention, sometimes they do not. Thus, this was an excellent example.
- laci27 9y agoYou're right. Like all things in life, one should use common sense when interacting with the world. No one (i hope) wants to spend their budget irrationally. So in your example, I would let the doctor decide if that $100 is spend better on curing rather than preventing. And that 1% reduction you came up as an example is not 1% for the entire population, it may be 1% to me and you, but maybe 50% for someone older, or with a specific condition...
- soVeryTired 9y agoWhat makes you think I'm not?
- txsh 9y agoRTFA. It does not save money.
- austinprete 9y agoUsing an acronym doesn't invalidate this HN guideline: "Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article." Also, does having an article claiming something now make that thing fact, is there no room for discussion or dialogue, or a questioning of the statistics provided, as soon as an article asserting an opinion is published? If you are going to argue against his point, why not at least point out the specifics of the article that invalidated it, or towards some other data, rather than just saying, "read the fucking article" and moving on?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- laci27 9y agoI did read it and I get the angle of it. it's not always cost effective, like all things in life, one should use common sense. But in general terms, preventative care does work well and costs the state less, at least in the UK.
- compiler-guy 9y agoThe article is a summary of a a study that reviews over 500 other papers dealing with how preventative care may or may not save money. It concludes that only childhood immunizations and one other thing save money. And that fifteen additional interventions are extremely low cost. This is an unintuitive result, but backed by a careful review of quite a bit of evidence. What evidence shows preventative care does save money?
- kgwgk 9y ago> But of course it saves money.. on the long run. Some of these preventive measures do, and some don’t. In some cases you spend more money and get less quality of life in return. If you think that they are « of course » a good idea by principle and don’t do the calculation you won’t be able to distinguish the useful from the wasteful.