
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 27, 1990                   TAG: 9003270121
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

PREVENTION'S WORTH FORGOTTEN

AN OUNCE of prevention is worth a pound of cure." More often than not, those who control the purse strings in our society tend to forget this wise adage.

Prenatal health care funds are cut. Result: babies born that cost many times what the prenatal care would cost, frequently a lifetime cost.

Funds for dropout, remedial, handicapped-education and vocational programs, etc., are cut. Result: Many times the cost of these programs is spent on these kids after graduation.

Funds are not being provided for a Youth Corps to give community jobs to young people. (I am reminded of the CCC camps of Franklin Roosevelt's time.)

We find money for bailing out savings and loans, their demise caused by fraud and incompetency, and the nonsensial idea of Reagan's, deregulation. Low-, moderate- and middle-income people are increasingly unable to afford necessary health care. (Canada and most European countries can, why can't we?) An "ounce of prevention" national health-care program would save taxpayers many times the cost by preventing disease and illness that they will eventually have to pay for.

We maintain our highways better than we maintain our people. I, for one, would gladly, in spite of President Bush's stubbornness, pay more in taxes now than many times more later. Are lawmakers listening? JACK E. BYRD HARDY

by CNB