Our Congressional Budget Office last week issued a statement that dismissed the notion that prevention saves money, this is just great with all the talk about living healthy and working on preventing diseases.  It’s also interesting to see what is said here about having a personal health coach here too, speaking of cost, and according to this article the expense is not worth it either, so maybe this money being spent by insurance companies is not being spent wisely, as premiums continue to rise?  I’m just asking the question as the article continues on to say that group functions and community efforts not only cost a lost less but have better results. 

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You can view a listing of the advisors to the Congressional Budget Office here.  

Once more, its is about healthcare and just saving the buck?  Many areas here are being overlooked too with such statements as technology can enter into the picture and help out a lot, but our Congress is not known for their values on technology as much as Wall Street and Health Insurers value it, but who’s the money?  Maybe the Congressional Budget Office could use some updated business intelligence software too. Scary if this opinion is embraced whole heartedly, the citizens will be put in even a worse position.  Is it a matter of “I’ve got mine and you can go find yours”? and the heck with preventative health care?  There are a few exceptions here, but not a lot they feel are cost savings.  BD 

CHICAGO – When it comes to health care spending, an ounce of prevention is seldom worth a pound of cure. Take Mrs. Jones, a hypothetical 55-year-old obese woman at risk for diabetes. It costs $900 a year to hire a personal lifestyle coach to help her lose weight and prevent diabetes. Suppose that the coaching works for Mrs. Jones, and she is spared diabetes and all the resulting health bills.

But research shows that for every person like Mrs. Jones, six other people just like her get nothing out of such a program. They either don't lose weight or get diabetes anyway or wouldn't have developed it in the first place. The yearly cost of the prevention program for those six people: $5,400.

That's probably more than Mrs. Jones' health bills from diabetes would have amounted to.

The truth is, shockingly few prevention efforts actually save the health care system money overall, despite claims by the president and some in Congress.

Discussing daily aspirin use with people at risk of heart disease does save money. So do vaccinations for children. When doctors talk to smokers and offer medication to help them quit, that, too, saves money.

Disease prevention often costs more than it saves - Yahoo! News

3 comments :

  1. I am affraid health care systems are biased all over the world...

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  2. this is a nice psot

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  3. Quite an impressive observation Carla. Sometimes it happens that we waste a large sum of money on insurance and other medical preventions, and on one day we think, that it would have been better to spend on its cure than its prevention. But sometimes, prevention results into a better decision for someone like me. Because of having many heart problems, I was enrolled in a concierge Healthcare program from elite health. I was attacked by a severe heart attack in a party, luckily surrounded by many people. Some of the sudden changes in my body was recognized by me and anticipated immediately. I got a very severe chest pain which was almost unbearable for more than a minute. I got the suspicion that I might be having heart attack, and immediately called my physician on the phone, and explained my condition and its severity. Because of the immediate guidance, I was directed immediately to have an aspirin which I used to carry with me as prescribed by my physician. It was quite a frightening experience for me to face such a heart attack, but somehow I managed to be calm until 911 arrived. I was immediately taken to the nearest hospital, where already my physician were present and have got everything setup according to my medical history. And it was in some matter of seconds that everything was in control. A doctor, who already have the complete knowledge of the medical history and fitness of the person, extra ordinarily ameliorate your recovery process. Hence such a concierge level program from Elite health, helped me a save my life, like many others.

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