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NEWS: Bob Roehr New US health bill must include prevention measures, senator says BMJ 2009; 338: b898 [Full text]

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Will Americans continue to be "dollar wise" and "cent foolish"?

Paul O. Ola   (2 July 2009)

Will Americans continue to be "dollar wise" and "cent foolish"? 2 July 2009
Paul O. Ola, Preventive Health Physiotherapist Physiohealth Services Ltd (23401) Send response to journal: Re: Will Americans continue to be "dollar wise" and "cent foolish"?	It is still both surprising and embarrassing that most healthcare policy makers all over the world still have not learnt that prevention is better and cheaper than cure and is the only option available as far as diseases of civilization or lifestyle are concerned. However with a few "cent wise" Americans like President Barrack Obama and Sen. Tom Harkin and others joining the crusade of emphasizing prevention over cure, there seems to appear, a ray of hope for advocates of prevention. Those of us who are crusaders of prevention hear statements like, “why spend money on prevention when there’s healthcare insurance?” and we marvel at such a high level of ignorance. Emphasis of cure over prevention has resulted in the highest prevalence of lifestyle diseases like cancer, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease e.t.c and “comorbidity”, the presence of more than one disease in an individual, to a level higher than the developed world has ever seen. Health care insurance never guarantees cure but only covers management through hospitalization, a major cause of deconditioning which puts an already sedentary individual at risk of other diseases and increased frequency of hospitalization, medical and surgical intervention that are not without their side effects and dangers, and rehabilitation when these diseases have made them amputees, disabled, and debilitated. That is how the US healthcare system spends trillions of dollars when with a few millions of dollars’ investment in preventive health training and research, the American people could be motivated and empowered to adopt healthy lifestyles which will slow down ageing, prevent disease and its consequences and promote wellness cutting healthcare spending from trillions to millions. However, I want Sen. Harper to know that the findings of Dean Ornish and his colleagues at U.C.S.F do not just counter “genetic nihilism”, which is the belief that nothing can be done about lifestyle diseases because they’re genetic. From their findings, we can infer that people who live unhealthy lifestyles are prone to diseases like cancer despite no family history because their lifestyle may switch on genes responsible for these diseases which were silent in their ancestors either due to their healthy lifestyles or unhealthy lifestyle in different environmental conditions. The message is therefore that anyone who lacks preventive health knowledge and lifestyle change skills in today’s fast world is living dangerously. Competing interests: None declared