[sgift]

> I’m not arguing over affect, I’m arguing over truth claims. The article leads with the facts and then argues that despite being a poor use of money we should still pay for preventive medicine for the warm fuzzy feelings it gives us. Pay attention to the facts, not the argument that we should ignore the facts for the warm fuzzy feelings.

That's a very disingenuous summary born out of a "economics trump everything" mentality. If you believe that humans are more important than money it is wrong and the original articles byline is a better summary:

Contrary to conventional wisdom, it tends to cost money, but it improves quality of life at a very reasonable price.

[barry-cotter]

Humans are more important than money; that’s why we should spend the money on saving human lives in the developing world, not making the lives of already healthy, wealthy first world inhabitants slightly more comfortable, why we should spend it on investments in the future not hideously wasteful consumption in the present. If we’re going to spend the money that inefficiently give people a tax cut instead. There are many better ways to spend the money than a tax cut but preventive health care isn’t it.

If we want to improve health outcomes we could do many things more effective than increasing preventive care. Nurse practitioners cost half as much as doctors and are just as effective at primary care. That’s a genuine huge bang for the buck intervention that could be done and isn’t. Never mind preventive medicine. Do something that actually works instead.

Primary Care Outcomes in Patients Treated by Nurse Practitioners or Physicians: A Randomized Trial. JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association. 283. 59-68. 10.1097/00132586-200012000-00026.