An ounce of prevention

If you repeat a hypothesis as fact over and over, people will tend to believe it.

Take the notion that smokers cost everybody else money because of the strain they put on the health care system.

It's a premise that's now widely accepted as fact -- so much so that Nanny Staters constantly trot it out to justify a host of heavy-handed government intrusions.

Unfortunately, many researchers now admit it's a crock. When you consider the fact that smokers, on average, die much younger than nonsmokers -- many having never collected Social Security or used Medicare -- the financial "burden" smokers impose on society is actually minimal, if nonexistent.

Now comes The Associated Press to expose another canard -- and it couldn't come at a better time.

As the Obama administration and its Democratic allies in Congress push the American people toward socialized medicine, they swear up and down that their "reforms" won't bust the budget, in part because they'll increase "prevention" efforts.

For instance, legislation favored by Senate Democrats actually creates a new government board to coordinate national prevention efforts. And the president said in April that investing in prevention "will save huge amounts of money in the long term."

Problem is: In general, the president's asserion is baloney.

In fact, while many "prevention" programs may indeed be helpful for the individual, "they certainly don't save money," notes The AP. "The truth is, shockingly few prevention efforts actually save the health care system money overall" despite repeated claims to the contrary.

Counting on disease prevention to save money "promises painless solutions to our health cost problems," said researcher Peter Neumann of Tufts Medical Center. His words echo the findings of the Congressional Budget Office, which last week argued the health plans promoted by Mr. Obama and congressional Democrats will cost far more than estimated, in part because prevention "would have clearer positive effects on health than on the federal budget."

President Obama and congressional Democrats are proposing the most radical and expensive overhaul of American medicine in the history of the republic. The American public deserve an honest debate. But that's not what they're getting when proponents of a government-run system repeatedly make bogus claims to conceal the true price tag of their experiment.