Sure it would. But the down-stream savings of preventative medicine don't show up in a balance sheet. There all you can see is money spent on people who don't really need it right now (or some variation on that general theme). That's a big part of the problem.

Well, yes, actually they do show up in a balance sheet - that's why it's a good thing if your balance sheet is an entire population without the difficult cases jettisoned.