Several news articles on health care costs came across my screen today, and - amazingly - all of them pointed out that preventing disease today is cheaper than treating disease tomorrow. What’s equally amazing is that many people can’t get this into their heads, despite the old adage “…a stitch in time saves nine!”

Saving Pfennige, Costing Lives

Health care is expensive, but inadequate treatment is even more expensive. This is a lesson the German government has yet to learn. For years much of the world has been a free rider on U.S. medical R&D. Most industrialized states rely on a mix of price and volume controls to limit pharmaceutical spending. These governments expect American drug makers to keep supplying their products, almost irrespective of price. Read the full article…

The Economic Value of America’s Investment in Medical Research

Commissioned by the Funding First initiative of the Mary Woodard Lasker Charitable Trust, Exceptional Returns: The Economic Value of America’s Investment in Medical Research is a fascinating report authored by nine of America’s most distinguished economists, outlining the enormous contribution of medical research to the American standard of living.

The Most Expensive Diseases

“Health costs have run amok in the U.S. General Motors pays more on health care than steel. A Harvard study indicated that half of personal bankruptcies in the U.S. are health related. Even as the ranks of uninsured Americans are swelling, Americans’ $1.7 trillion annual doctor bill continues to grow by at least 7% each year. What, exactly, are Americans paying for? To find out, Forbes magazine writer Matthew Herper decided to look at which diseases are costing the system the most money and which ailments had the most skyrocketing health costs.