Health Care

Most important is preventing disease and promoting healthy lifestyles. I am just as guilty as many Californians of not actively pursuing this course of treatment. The five chronic diseases — heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and diabetes — cause two thirds of the deaths in California. These diseases are largely preventable, but make up 75% of the health care expenditures we experience in California. Let us appropriate additional resources to eliminate these diseases and reap the benefit — dramatically reducing the overall cost of health care in California. As Ben Franklin stated “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

I want to further state that for those who think taxpayers are again going to pick up the tab for such programs, think again. The uninsured and underinsured eventually do receive health care (at the taxpayers’ expense) and at a much higher cost. In addition, these individuals not afforded preventive health care might have avoided these inflated medical treatments in the first place.