Prevention Matters

The Washington Post has hit the nail square on the handle. A front-page, above the fold article in the Oct. 6 edition proclaimed: "U.S. Losing Ground on Preventable Deaths; Despite High Medical Spending, Results Trail Other Wealthy Countries." It noted that "nations that dramatically lowered their preventable death rates focused on challenges such as controlling diabetes and reducing hospital-acquired infections."

Sounds promising so far... What was the conclusion?

"The U.S. doesn't take primary care seriously," said Mark Pearson, head of the health division at the Organization of for Economic Cooperation and Development.

But could it possibly have anything to do with the fact that the U.S. takes population-based prevention even less seriously? As in only devoting about 5 percent of health care spending to it?

The headline above the story's inside jump page declared: "U.S. Preventable-Death Rate Confounds Medical Reform Efforts."

Indeed. Our guess is that it will continue to confound them as long as it is viewed as entirely a medical problem.