Prevention Matters

Kudos to the San Francisco Chronicle's for noticing the prevention provisions in the health reform bills being worked out by Congress, and for realizing they are substantial.

"There's a sleeper in both the House and Senate bills that could do more to promote health in the long run than any of the insurance we may - or may not - get," Lucy Johns, a health care planning and policy consultant in San Francisco, writes in a Chronicle column.

"Both bills address long-term disease prevention and health promotion with innovative strategies and startling amounts of funding," she writes. "The House appropriates $15.4 billion over five years, the Senate over $7 billion. This level of federal investment nibbles at the historic imbalance between spending for medical services and spending that averts the need for services in the first place.