cq3; preventative vs. curative

Question 1

Why has health expenditure increased over the years?

Answer 1

It costs more to ‘cure’ a disease, than prevent it and a large amount of the population already have these diseases due to an ageing population.

Question 2

How much has healthcare expenditure increased by?

Answer 2

$160 billion (2015) to $185 billion (2018)

Question 3

Why should Australia lean towards prevention?

Answer 3

Leading causes of death and illness are lifestyle related and highly preventable

Question 4

Why is it cheaper to spend money on health promotion and prevention rather than treatment?

Answer 4

An individual will spend more for treatment than prevention of their illness (e.g. gym membership now to accumulated yearly expenses for cardiovascular disease)

Question 5

Why is it so much more expensive to treat illnesses rather than prevent them?

Answer 5

• Usually compounded and expensive
• Equipment used for treatment is expensive
• Often requires highly trained professionals
• Often requires lengthy hospital stays

Question 6

If we know prevention programs work, then why aren’t we allocating more funding to intervention and prevention?

Answer 6

• There are already so many people that need curative services
• Not all diseases can be prevented (e.g. type 1 diabetes)
• We live in an ageing population, harder to prevent diseases when old + more likely to have diseases

Question 7

What are the examples for prevention?

Answer 7

• National tobacco strategy
• SunSmart
• Quitline

Question 8

What are the examples of curative expenditure?

Answer 8

• PBS
• Medicare

Question 9

How much of the health care budget goes to curative treatment?

Answer 9

98% of the $194 billion budget

Question 10

What are the disadvantages of curative treatment?

Answer 10

• creates inequities and its why health facilities are only equitable to a moderate extent.
• relies heavily on access and some determinants restrict access more for particular sub groups
• the more that is spent on curative, the less that goes to prevention, thus assisting to make things more inequitable.

Question 11

What are the benefits of prevention?

Answer 11

• empowers people to take control of their own health
• relies less on access
• improves equity by addressing health literacy and focusing on lifestyle behaviours
• reduces the burden on the health care system

Question 12

What is the paradoxical nature of the Australian approach to preventative expenditure?

Answer 12

although there has been a shift towards prevention over the last 25 years, it only makes up 2% of the health care budget.