President Obama and Democrats claim there will be health care savings by the mandated preventative procedures in their health care reform bill. They have chastised and demonized insurance companies for not providing universal coverage for these procedures. Insurance companies are businesses. If these procedures saved money, insurance companies would gladly cover them as a "smart business decision." The reason these medical procedures aren't always covered is they actually cost more money. Congressman Nathan Deal, ranking member on the Subcommittee on Health,Committee on Energy and Commerce asked the CBO about these "alleged" cost savings. He got this response (PDF).
Preventive medical care includes services such as cancer screening, cholesterol management, and vaccines. In making its estimates of the budgetary effects of expanded governmental support for preventive care, CBO takes into account any estimated savings that would result from greater use of such care as well as the estimated costs of that additional care. Although different types of preventive care have different effects on spending, the evidence suggests that for most preventive services, expanded utilization leads to higher, not lower, medical spending overall.
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