Regarding “Better data needed on preventive health spending: GAO”:

Preventive care is a laudable goal but will never reduce healthcare costs. The large reduction in smoking over the past 20 years has had huge healthcare benefits, but costs continue to rise.

Any physician who deals with geriatric patients recognizes this reality, but healthcare experts continue to espouse this unproven belief. It's actually very simple; if you keep an individual alive until age 85, everything starts to go wrong despite preventive care, that is the reality.

Steven Rauchman, M.D.
Mission Hills, Calif.