While it is argued that preventing ailments by disbursing public money on persuading people to live healthily should be prioritized over the expenditure of treating ill people. Although there is some validity in that viewpoint, I strongly disagree it for several reasons.
To begin with, it is imperative that the medical field be developed as much as possible and doing this requires a large sum of money. It is undeniable that improving the medical quality does not only help people to find better treatment for illnesses but scientists can also come up with medical-related findings, new methods of preventing ailments or creating effective state-of-the-art technology for treating patients. For instance, in 2020, the donation from people across the world to WHO organization is considerably contributed to a variety of projects and researching leading to the advent of vaccinations and medicines that help to fight the devastating Covid-19 pandemic.
On the other hand, from my perspective, encouraging healthy lifestyles doesn’t necessarily require a large amount of money. First, the government can step by step raise people’s awareness of following habits that benefit their health through the media such as TV or newspaper. For example, there are many Vietnamese newspaper like Tuoi Tre or Phu Nu, which involve a topic that talks about health and lifestyles providing the readers with information concerning how they can improve their health and prevent possible illnesses. Furthermore, famous influencers can also have a huge positive impact on their followers by sharing about diet, doing exercises and other healthy activities because fans are easily influenced by these people.
Those aforementioned methods may increase the number of healthy lifestyle advocates while costing little or even no fundings. However, treating people with severe illnesses can cost an unimaginable amount of disburse for many reasons which might be unaffordable for most people. As a result, I think the money can be allocated on many fields such as buying costly equipment or medicines as well as paying scientists and doctors.
In conclusion, I believe the expenditure of treating ill people should be the first priority of the government as a lot of money is needed to advance the health system and treat patients while the promotion of healthy lifestyles can be achieved by many ways that doesn’t need too much money.