What would you suggest as 'preventative medicine' to lower health-care costs?

[just_me]

For health-care to become more affordable for us, I believe that we need more preventative medicine.

What measures would you suggest to the US Secretary of Health and Human Services that would cost only a little and save a lot.

[Larry B]

Eating vegetables

[James]

Most of the 'cost' of healthcare is profit - money going straight into the pockets of the unproductive rich.

take away the profit

[schazjmd]

I actually think way too much is spent on "preventative medicine" -- routine annual tests, exams, etc --and we really don't know whether the investment is actually justified by the results. How often are real medical problems identified through those appointments, as opposed to when people seek out a doctor because they're ill or have a troubling symptom?

Now, if the argument becomes (as it so often does), "if only one life is saved because of a routine exam, it's worth it" -- well, then cost isn't a consideration.

And since a recent study discovered that thin healthy people cost more medically over a lifetime than those who are obese or smoke, and since nobody is going to back down on the "need" for constant frequent unnecessary exams and tests as "preventative" measures, the healthier people are, the more it's going to cost.