Preventative Healthcare ... will it happen?

First of all, preventive care DOES happen in a number of settings that work on very lean margins, with the necessity of providing less costly, quality health care, including the public hospitals, community clinics and private hospitals that see a large number of uninsured patients. It quite clearly can and does work.

However, while an up-front investment in preventive care seems logical, logic, unfortunately, does not determine the manner in which health care policy is created in this country.

The simple fact is that it is more cost-effective and infinitely easier to treat patients at a primary and preventive care level, thereby avoiding more severe acuity of disease (especially chronic diseases, like diabetes, asthma and heart disease). This type of approach saves money for insurance companies, clinicians, the government and patients. It also clearly saves patients from unnecessary suffering, over-utilization of hospital emergency departments, and improves quality of life overall.

As many have mentioned, there are many competing interests involved that determine how health care is delivered -- the insurance and pharmaceutical companies, hospitals -- both public and private; physicians and other health care providers and government at the local, state and federal levels.

Some, like pharmaceutical companies and providers might not vocally support preventive care, as it might cut into their bottom lines. However, despite regular check-ups and check-ins, people will continue to get sick. Clinicians, hospitals and medications will always have more than enough business. We might, however, see a shift in how resources are expended from treatment of symptoms of acute disease to a focus on disease management, i.e. monitoring diabetic patients on a regular basis to avoid unnecessary consequences of inadequate care, including amputation of limbs.

I wholeheartedly agree with some of the other answers that refer to the need for personal responsibility in one's own health care. But personal responsibility and preventive care are not conflicting concepts. Ideally, one will both see their doctor regularly for primary and preventive care and make behavioral changes, including smoking reduction or cessation, eating healthy and exercising. It must be stressed that regular medical intervention might help patients to make such difficult behavioral changes through education, motivation and even medical intervention such as bariatric surgery or prescription nicotine aids.

Finally, this question begs the question of whether preventive care is even available to all who need it. There are a number of vulnerable populations including the indigent, uninsured, mentally ill, those for whom English is not a first language, those with difficulty obtaining transportation, and many others that do not have adequate access to ANY health care. This situation must be addressed before this question becomes truly relevant.