WT2 - Prevention & Treatment

Some people think it is more important for government to spend public money on promoting healthy lifestyle in order to prevent illness than to spend it on the treatment of people who are already ill. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

In recent years, healthcare and other medical issues have been receiving a great deal of media attention because of their substantial impacts on human life. Although some might suggest that the government should spend more the on illness prevention rather than on medical treatment, this suggestion brinds more negative effects than the upsides.

One of the main reasons is the government would find it vitally difficult to promote healthy lifestyle. First, the authority cannot make a shift on daily lifestyle, including eating habits and mental activities, of citizens by a forcing policy. For example, if the lawmaker banned all kind of fast food to reduce number of overweight people, they would meet the negative argument from the consumers who are reliant on these kind of food and the large corporations in this industry. which the government may have to compromise at the end. Second, if national leader had idea of raising awareness on eating habits and lifestyle by educating children at the early age, it would take almost a decade to see clear result, in case this solution works. In contrast, investing on illness treatment usually brings substantial effects in several years, which is conductive to measure.

Another reason is that the suggestion is not suitable for the reality of society. There are still million patients waiting for cure and treatment everyday. The society will be against this suggestion as it it not philanthropic to abandon those who are already ill. In fact, several diseases cannot be prevented or even cured, such as H1N1 and AIDS. Therefore, if an uncured disease happen in mass population, the lack of medical budget will cause serious problems to society and human life, including death.

In conclusion, the idea of reducing budget of medical treatment to spend more on prevention is innocent and should not be implemented due to the obstacles in controlling lifestyle of residents and large number of existing patients.

Please comment if I have any error. Thank you so much!