Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 6, 1991 TAG: 9103061119
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Another medical marvel. Two cheers.
The third cheer let's hold until more people start taking better care of themselves - so that heart-repair surgery isn't needed as often.
Saving lives is good. So is using fast-expanding medical knowledge and technology to save more of them. But so, too, are preventive care and healthier lifestyles - and they're an awful lot cheaper.
Not everyone with heart trouble, or other health problems, brings it on himself or herself. There are genetic defects. There are congenital difficulties. There are ailments and disorders caused by accidents, by exposure to contagion or bad environment, by poor nutrition and inadequate health care in childhood, by the vulnerabilities of aging. The list is long. Those who need medical care should receive it, and society should be concerned if they do not.
People should not, however, overeat, drink to excess, smoke, drive recklessly and in other ways jeopardize their lives, limbs and general health - then expect medical science to kiss it and make it all well, and health insurance to pay for it. A big chunk of the nation's $600 billion annual health-care bill goes to repair, or try repairing, damage people heedlessly do to themselves.
You can bet that in a majority of cases where it's needed, the diamond-tipped cutter is routing out hardened deposits of fat that derive from bad diet or smoking or both. You also can bet that the technology cost millions to develop and will cost many thousands of dollars each time it's used. Technological wonders are one big reason the cost of health care jumps every year, far outpacing the annual increase in other living costs.
Whenever a new medical marvel is developed, patients want it. That's natural. But there's no way every life-saving medical technique can be made available to everyone who needs or seeks it. There aren't enough machines or hospitals or physicians for that, nor is there enough money. Choices will always be necessary. Do we spend $100,000 of our limited health-care funds to cure one person? Or do we spend $1,000 to make 100 people healthier?
Every life is valuable. That's why priorities are important. The well-off can always afford to take care of themselves. But when government or health-insurance funds are lavished on one person's ailment, it can deprive many other people of essential help. The nation needs a unitary system that assures a basic level of health care to everyone - and includes preventive care to head off the more expensive treatments.
by CNB