Your Answer ▼
With an increase of life expectancy,
people tend to more attention to pay for their medical expenses. However,
whether to spend money on treatment, or to invest in raising citizen’s
conscious of healthy living is a debatable issue. I agree with an idea that
governments should provide more financial support to encourage a healthier
lifestyle.
To begin with, it is true that spending
money on improving cure system is significantly important for patients. However,
too much emphasis on treatment can cause side effects and people are likely to
miss simple sickness such as cold and eye diseases. In contrast, the policy of prevention
makes people have strong immune system. For instance, governments encourage the
public to get flu shot and wear a mask covering their mouth in order to prevent
common illness during winter season. Moreover, healthy eating and regular
physical activity play a considerable role in protecting certain diseases like
a cancer or chronic diseases. According to the research, it has definite connection
between cancer rates and unhealthy diet and poor lifestyle.
In addition, from an economic perspective, prevention of illness can
be greatly beneficial to reducing massive financial burden. Educating and
advertising a healthy lifestyle are highly cost-effective. That is because
treating a patient who is suffering from long-term diseases costs more and the
investment expenses of development of new cures are needed much funds. For example,
the Korean government implemented health warnings on the cigarette package to
discourage smoking and raised the price and tax in order to improve public
healthy. As a result, this scheme decreased the number of patients who suffered
from lung cancer.
In conclusion, I argue that the national budget should be paid for
prevention efforts for individuals and society in the long term.
|