Breast cancer screening program for poor women to stop accepting new patients

LA Times ^ | 12/4/2009 | Ron Gong Lin II

[markomalley]

A cigarette tax-funded program that pays for breast cancer screenings for low-income women will stop accepting new patients Jan. 1, public health officials said this week. Officials said the decision came as a result of “unprecedented fiscal challenges” to the program which they hope to reopen by summertime.

If “Every Woman Counts” reopens July 2 as planned, its scope will be scaled back significantly. Although women ages 50 and older will still be eligible, women ages 40-49 will no longer be screened. State officials acknowledged that women ages 40 to 49 who had been served by the program will no longer have access to state-funded screening.

Officials said demand has grown for the free screening even as the program's main source of revenue, a tobacco tax, has dwindled. Women already enrolled in the program will continue to be eligible for annual screenings, officials said.

But Dr. Mark Horton, the state health officer, said in a statement that short-term increases in state funding for the program “have not been enough to keep pace with the growing demand for and cost of providing breast cancer screening services to women in this program.”Officials said the age requirement was tightened because, according to the California Department of Public Health, most breast cancer cases occur in women older than 50.

The service covered breast cancer screening tests for women that were not covered by other government medical programs, such as Medi-Cal; had medical insurance that failed to cover such screenings; had a high insurance deductible or copayment; or were low-income.

[markomalley]

And that is how our deficit, at large, works. A temporary program funded by a temporary source garners permanent dependence.

But, never fear. Obamacare is coming. (Of course, unnecessary tests will never pass the comparative effectiveness panel, but that's besides the point)

[samtheman]

program's main source of revenue, a tobacco tax, has dwindled

Now there's a laffer for you.

They raised the tax, and lowered the revenue.

How could that be?

[cripplecreek]

Mmmm mmm mmm

[Nickname]

I expect that their response will be that due to the shortfalls, the tobacco tax must be raised again.

[NautiNurse]

Raise the tax, lose the revenue and accessibility. In an alternate universe, they change the screening requirements to lower demand. Viola!

[autumnraine]

The first casualty of the new “guidelines”.

Also, this is exactly what I said would happen with the tobacco tax. Now, instead of making $2 a pack, they make $0.

[Da Coyote]

Yup, the dim bulbs will use the revenue shortfall to start a new tax.

They are so transparent.

And sooner or later, we’re gonna get smart enough to put them in jail.

[Diogenesis]

Pres_ _ent Obama, the DNC and international bankers:

Bringing death where curative disease once existed.

[samtheman]

If I were a smoker (which I was many years ago), part of my motivation to quit right not would be to deprive these stinking commies of their filthy tax lucre.

[samtheman]

I’m tempted to say that these idiots are penny wise and pound foolish since saving pennies on cancer screening costs much more for cancer treatments later... but they don’t plan on paying for those, either, do they?

After all, death panels are cheap, and full employment for bureaucrats.

[Hardastarboard]

And everybody with a level of education over the fifth grade knows that once cigarette taxes get to a certain point, organized criminal gangs step in and start bootlegging them, eliminating the tax revenue entirely.

[TASMANIANRED]

Now they are going to call it... “Only some women count and you aren’t one of them”.