Letter to Editor: USA Health Expenditure on Disease Prevention

This assignment is a letter to the editor written by a student, Pablo Carlos, defending the US's allocation of healthcare expenditure towards disease prevention rather than solely focusing on cures. The letter critiques a previous article that suggested the opposite. Carlos, citing his background in public health, argues that the US invests significantly in preventive measures, particularly for chronic diseases, and references the high per-person spending on health prevention. The letter highlights the implementation of evidence-based practices, including primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention strategies, such as encouraging exercise, providing medication, and conducting routine exams. Carlos emphasizes that these measures are cost-effective and improve population health, concluding that disease prevention is crucial for enhancing the quality of life in the US and refuting the editor's prior claims. The letter includes references to supporting literature.

Letter to Editor
Pablo Carlos,
P.O. Box 670-0004,
New York-USA,
10/09/2019.
The Editor,
The New York Times Magazine,
P.O. Box 400-00001,
New York-USA
dear sir/madam,
Re: Rejecting the Expenditure That More Money Is Spent on Curing Diseases Rather Than
Preventing.
How are you? I hope you are fine. The main aim to write this letter is to defend what you
posted last week on the New York times magazines justifying that more money is spent in the
united states to cure diseases rather than preventing. Being a member of public health in the
county, I reject your position because much money which is released in the area most of it is
used in preventing diseases especially the chronic diseases. Comparing united states with other
countries, it spends much of its money on health care. Focusing on the health expenditure in the
year 2006, the country spent almost $ 7000 on health prevention per person. Moreover, it is
noted that almost 80% of expenditure in the country to spend on people with chronic diseases.
This means that the country comprises quality health life by spending much of the expenditure in
preventing diseases (Kraska, 2017).
The country also has preventive care measures in which the medical practitioners use
evidence-based practices. This is focused on chronic diseases like cancer and heart attack.
Moreover, infectious diseases are prevented through vaccination and immunization. It is evident

that physician use three types of preventive measures which are also in the health care policy.
They focus on primary prevention which is termed as the first process which is applied to
prevent any contagious or infectious disease (Benjamin and Blaha, 2017). To achieve this, the
medical practitioners and also the officials in the public health provide a schedule in every health
care so that this can be achieved. An example of primary care practices is encouraging patients to
exercise to prevent obesity. The other method applied is secondary preventive measure which
focuses on reducing the impact on an existing disease. This can be achieved by giving good diet
and better medication to be affected, people. The third preventive measure applied in the country
is tertiary prevention focuses on carrying out a routine exam on the infected persons. Applying
these measures helps in preventing and reducing the cost spent on health care (Muennig and
Bounthavong, 2016). According to the studies, united states has marked to be the first country
which saves much money in health expenditure because most of the health issues are prevented.
The family physicians are educated on the importance of applying preventive measures to
reduce cost. Moreover, this is also applied to patients to reduce the cost they spend on Medicare.
Due to education being offered to them, most patients in the country have adapted to the
prevention means. Moreover, healthcare officials focus on the most effective measures by
ensuring the measures applied to patients always lead to positive patient outcome (Abel-Smith,
2018). Moreover, they also focus on the cost-effective ways which improve the population
health of the country. Finally, I want to conclude this letter by letting you know that preventing
diseases is what is based in our country. This is done to improve the quality life of the population
in the country.in this kindly confirms the arguments have provided to confirm your statement.
Thank you.

Yours sincerely,
Pablo Carlos.

References
Abel-Smith, B. (2018). An introduction to health: policy, planning and financing. Routledge.
Benjamin, E. J., Blaha, (2017). Heart disease and stroke statistics-2017 update: a report from the
American Heart Association. circulation, 135(10), e146-e603.
Kraska, T. (2017). Letter from the Special Issue Editor. IEEE Data Eng. Bull., 40(1), 2.
Muennig, P., & Bounthavong, M. (2016). Cost-effectiveness analysis in health: a practical
approach. John Wiley & Sons.