Why does this country spend an increasing portion of its resources... ?

Question

why does this country spend an increasing portion of its resources on medical services, although they are less cost effective than other methods for improving health status

Answer 1

People would rather allow themselves to get sick than to take preventative medicine and eat healthy and sensible foods. Even smokers are only now beginning to realise how much longer they would live if they could give it up. It is due to human nature, which is not very sensible in certain matters and takes the short-term road to pleasure rather than anticipating what their longer lives could give them.

If everybody were more careful about their health and this was a socially desirable feature of our lives, then the small numbers who were careless would be socially unacceptable. The opposite is more common in our present society, we are like a lot of suicidal lemmings, with about as much intelligence.

Answer 2

This is more of a political question then a scientific one.

Also i assume that you are from USA, since that's the only group on the Internet who expect everybody to figure it out without them saying anything.

But to actually answer your question, it is probably due to the fact that it will not win you the election if you will tell the people that they need to exercise and eat differently, it is easier to "support american way of life" while at the same time getting large campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical companies.