Rejecting U.S. health care reform because of the almighty dollar :(

While I'm on the subject of good ideas that have almost no chance of being adopted, how about truly providing preventive medical care?  Why is it that American medicine focuses on cure, rather than prevention, or as my cynical spouse says, on treatment rather than either prevention or cure?  His theory is that there's more money to be made by keeping a patient in perpetual treatment than in either preventing illness or curing it.   Personally, I think he may have a point.  Why is it that our insurance covers visits to a gastroenterologist, who can treat digestive problems, but not to a dietitian, who might be able to help prevent them?

I hardly think anyone should be surprised that people with health problems get so much of their information from the Internet because their doctors aren't giving them answers that work and/or that don't give them dreadful, even fatal, side effects.  I refused to take Fosamax, an osteoporosis drug, after reading the warnings (in the enclosed instructions), among which were "irreversible jaw rot."  I thought bisphosphonates were supposed to cure bone loss, not cause it.  Broken hip bone, anyone?  (Yep, happened to someone I know.)  Serious skin damage, anyone?  (Yep, happened to someone else I know.)  And why get on digestion medications that might make you sicker than you already are and/or permanently dependent on drugs, rather than trying a "treatment diet," such as this one?

On a related subject, why is it so difficult to find health insurance that provides good coverage for dental care?  Are we all supposed to survive on baby food?

And why is it relatively easy to find insurance coverage for eyeglasses, but much more difficult to find insurance coverage for hearing aids?  (Medicare doesn't cover them, despite the fact that many seniors lose at least some hearing with increasing age.)  Do the insurance companies and/or the government think that hearing loss is of little consequence?  Or is the real problem that insurance companies and the government don't want to pay for hearing aids because they cost thousands of dollars more than glasses?