Why Not Try Preventing Illness as a Way of Controlling Medicare Costs?

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Abstract
Now that health-care costs have reached 10.5 per cent of our gross national product and Medicare alone is approaching 2 per cent,1 it is not surprising that the search for cost-control strategies has also escalated. What is distressing is the continued lack of attention to what is potentially the most effective of all cost-control strategies: the prevention or minimization of disease and disability. In the case of Medicare, the basic statute specifically bans payment for "routine physical check-ups," eye, hearing, and dental examinations, and immunizations (Social Security Act, Section 1862). The one exception is immunization against pneumococcal pneumonia, legislated in . . .

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