2524 He Taller.

Well, preventative medicine doesn’t save as much as people think. I remember some years ago when they changed the recommendation for mammograms for women under 40 to every other year instead of every year (unless you have a family history)–it saved the healthcare system literally billions (because that’s, what, like 20 million women, so if a mammogram costs $100, that’s 2 billion dollars saved every year they skip). Now multiply that by the many thousands of tests denied each year (or doctors don’t even bother trying to get it approved because they know it won’t be) to see how much money it would cost if we had no restraint. If they just paid for every test and screening at the drop of a hat, it would skyrocket medical costs, with only a small decrease due to catching issues early. Of course, if they refuse to pay for practically any screenings, then we would indeed have a massive increase in costs from expensive things that would have been cheap to fix if caught early. It’s not easy. This isn’t to say insurance companies don’t piss me off too, I work in healthcare, but like anything else, there’s a sweet spot where these things are balanced. I don’t think it’s entirely driven by the hope that you’ll be with a different insurance carrier before the easily-detectable disease makes you sick or whatever.