[aladoc99]

One of the truisms of medicine is that ultimately every disease and every treatment has a 100% mortality, so we can never truly save a life. What we can do is promote the quality and quantity of life. In the US, the rule of thumb is that it's worth spending $50,000 to keep someone alive for a year, with that being the approximate cost of dialysis therapy. So, to save 10 years of life would be expected to be worth spending a half a million bucks. Which is all to say that an additional 10 years of reasonable quality of life is worth a lot, both to society and to most individuals. The other strain in your comment suggests that people who are presumably in some way responsible for their disease are less worthy of care. This opens up a giant slippery slope. Start with drug use, smoking, alcohol use, being overweight, eating meat, drinking coffee, working too many hours a week... Ultimately only celibate teetotalling vegans are worthy of medical care.

[elhudy]

>The other strain in your comment suggests that people who are presumably in some way responsible for their disease are less worthy of care

I am stating that people who are presumably in some way responsible for their disease are not MORE worthy of care. It is only these people who are receiving free screenings - as per the article.

[Aloha]

Where do you draw that line? - I mean no person who understand the addictive power of nicotine would make this kind of statement.