Free mammograms and diabetes tests and checkups for all, promise Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, writing in USA Today. Prevention, they assure us, will not just make us healthier, it also “will save money.”
Obama followed suit in his Tuesday New Hampshire town hall, touting prevention as amazingly dual-purpose: “It saves lives. It also saves money.”
Reform proponents repeat this like a mantra. Because it seems so intuitive, it has become conventional wisdom. But like most conventional wisdom, it is wrong. Overall, preventive care increases medical costs.
This inconvenient truth comes, once again, from the CBO. In an Aug. 7 letter to Rep. Nathan Deal, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf writes: “Researchers who have examined the effects of preventive care generally find that the added costs of widespread use of preventive services tend to exceed the savings from averted illness.”
I have posted about that particularly egregious lie being peddled right now. More than once, in fact. The fact is that the only curve bending produced by the Democrat’s various and sundry plans is upward. The only “savings” in these plans is in cutting down the freedom of those pesky peasants out there. (Smelly tourists is Harry Reid’s expression for them.)
The Democrats are pushing snake oil. Their plans will greatly diminish choices, interfere between doctor and patient, cost more and give back less. All this is meant to usher in socialist medical practices as the plans are “improved” from year to year. And your freedoms will be eroded further with each “improvement”.
I’m confused. Aren’t mammograms and tests for diabetes diagnostic procedures? If so, why are they being called preventive medicine?