To the editor:

In a Aug. 14 Journal-World column, Charles Krauthammer wrote some 800 words about preventive health care costs.

Among those words were: “Prevention is a wondrous good, but in the aggregate it costs society money.” Mr. Krauthammer says in his column that many other worthwhile things cost society money; he mentioned treating heart attacks. One can assume that he would also agree that guardrails on Interstate highways cost society money.

Society spends this money, Mr. Krauthammer says, “because it alleviates human suffering.” My sense from reading Mr. Krauthammer’s column is that he opposes the current health reform, in part, because preventive health care costs society money. Mr. Krauthammer also says preventive health care alleviates human suffering. He says spending society’s money to alleviate human suffering is worthwhile.

So what was Mr. Krauthammer’s 800-word point? Why does the Journal-World pay money for the right to publish blather?