Similarly from the linked Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report: «Prevention can reduce the incidence of disease, but savings may be partially offset by health

Similarly from the linked Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report: «Prevention can reduce the incidence of disease, but savings may be partially offset by health care costs associated with increased longevity.» Perhaps a useful way of looking at things would be to imagine we had access to a graph of the function from (preventative health care, emergency health care) → life expectancy, and see what it looks like for constant life expectancy. If you could increase the preventative part by less than you decrease the emergency part, then I think in one sense it's fair to say that preventative care saves money.