Cancer Killers

The Wall Street Journal | 9/14/07 | Betsy McCaughhey

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Last week the American Cancer Society announced it will no longer run ads about the dangers of smoking and other cancer-causing behaviors and the benefits of regular screenings. Instead, the Society will devote this year's entire advertising budget to a campaign for universal health coverage.

. . . International comparisons establish that the current method of financing health care in the U.S. is not a bigger killer than tobacco [as the American Cancer Society suggests]. What is deadly are delays in treatment and lack of access to the most effective drugs, proglems encountered by some uninsured cancer patients in the U.S. but by a far larger proportion of cancer patients in the U.K. and Europe. Cancer patients do welll in a few small countries with national health insurance, such as Sweden and Finland, but they do better in the U.S. than anywhere else on the globe.

With a track record like that, the American Cancer Society should continue its lifesaving messages about prevention and screening instead of switching to a political agenda. The goal should be to ensure that all cancer patients receive the timely care our current system provides, not to radically overhaul the system.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Article published on the editorial page but not found on opinionjournal.com. This excerpt includes the first, the penultimate, and the last paragraph of the piece.

My comments are:

1. Socialism is cheapness. Socialized medicine is cheap medicine. We all desire economy, but socialism is not efficiency but penny wise pound foolishness. Anyone who has cancer wants excellent treatment. Full Stop. And any patriot wants our posterity to pity us for the current limitations of "excellent" health care as much as we pity George Washington and Queen Victoria (whose beloved husband Prince Albert died of an infectious disease "no one" dies from in modern day America) for the limitations of what was the best medical care on offer in their times.

2. Socialized medicine is a political issue, and one associated with one particular party in the U.S. Therefore to the extent that the American Cancer Society promotes socialized medicine, the American Cancer Society makes itself a political organization to which donations are not legitimately exempt from Federal income tax.

[Redbob]

Government-paid medicine is rationed medicine.

Don’t believe me?
Ask the doctors and their patients in Canada.
Doctors are coming here to work, and the sick are coming here if they need immediate treatment.

But they have “universal health care.”
It’s just universally bad.

[ElkGroveDan]

When they start rationing healthcare people will go in for fewer routine cancer screenings. It’s hard enough to get me in to a doctor’s office where I have no wait now. I can’t imagine sitting around for hours when there is nothing in particular bothering me. As a result more people will delay cancer diagnosis and more people will die from it.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

the problem with socialism is that its leaders do not subscribe to the rules they impose on the masses. For instance, congress does not subscribe to Social Security. The have their own health program. We need to have a universal program in which the leaders suffer with the masses. Then, they won’t have the program. We need to chant on the streets, we only want the programs our public servants get.

[qam1]

Check this out

[RinaseaofDs]

Thatcher said it best:

“Socialism is wonderful until you run out of somebody else’s money.”

He who provides, decides. If Uncle Sam is the provider, then he’s the decider too.

What’s funny about all this is what ISN’T written about - The UK, Canada, and the Continent all have a THRIVING private health care system, with insurance and everything. If you have the means, you can purchase both insurance and care from a network of private providers and facilities.

[thackney]

Instead, the Society will devote this year's entire advertising budget to a campaign for universal health coverage.

Then they have receive my last donation until they drop such idiocy.

[qam1]

With a track record like that, the American Cancer Society should continue its lifesaving messages about prevention and screening instead of switching to a political agenda.

The ACS has never been about cancer, it always had a political agenda

But "livesaving messages"? They should be working on cures instead. Who has ever been cured of cancer by hearing a "message"?

If the ACS spend 1/4 of the money it has on promoting smoking and food bans on researching a cure/better treatments instead who knows how much more our knowledge would be advanced

[thackney]

Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=47523

Opinion | American Cancer Society Advertising Campaign Against Lack of Adequate Health Coverage in U.S. a ‘Waste,’ According to Op-Ed

[Ben Mugged]

Well I have made my last donation to the American Cancer Society. Instead of working for a cure, they are supporting the spread of the social cancer called socialism.

[CDHart]

"If Uncle Sam is the provider, then he’s the decider too."

He already is to a large extent, esp. Medicare and Medicaid.

Carolyn

[Red Badger]

The old adages always applies: You get what you pay for.............Caveat Emptor...........

[Rhetorical pi2]

I am thinking this through as I’m typing, so my suggestions will not be complete.

However, the thought occurs to me that a relatively uncomplicated way to provide “universal health care” would be to pass a federal revenue law allowing a tax credit (NOT a deduction - but a 100% tax credit) for all medical expenses, including a 100% tax credit for medical insurance premiums paid to an insurance provider.

There would be no substantial addition bureaucracy established. The consumer could choose the insurance company for insurance purposes and also have the choice of doctors, hospitals, etc.

If one’s tax credit exceeded taxes due, the “earned income tax credit” could be applied to offset these additional expenses.

The insurance company infrastruction is already in place, the policies are already written - just allow every consumer to choose.

People not having sufficient income to pay taxes and qualify as “poverty level”, would access the current Medicaid system.

Look, this is gonna be expensive. It will be riddled with graft and abuse, but the American public as determined that is is going to happen, and so it will.

[Mygirlsmom]

As a result more people will delay cancer diagnosis and more people will die from it.

It's worse than that--once a diagnosis is made, a person may have to wait months or years to have anything done about it under socialist systems.

[thackney]

Contact ACS
http://www.cancer.org/asp/contactUs/cus_global.asp

Your American Cancer Society welcomes any questions or comments you might have.

[pieceofthepuzzle]

I will never give another dime to the ACS. As a general rule, with some exceptions, those who wind up in policy positions in medicine are poor physicians, are egotistical, wouldn’t do well in practice, and are far removed from the reality of daily patient care. They are the worst people to have in those positions. Many are also lazy, and avoid taking weekend and night call, and all the other things that physicians must do, by spending their days going to meetings instead. If you needed a physician in an emergency, these are the last people you would ever want to see. Often the most laughable clowns wind up heading medical associations. With, as i said, some exceptions.

[Puppage]

If you have the means, you can purchase both insurance and care from a network of private providers and facilities

Not in Canada you can't. If you have the cash, you can't buck the system, you wait along with everyone else. It's illegal to pay a doctor to treat you ahead of others.

[RinaseaofDs]

True enough. The plans Canadians buy require service to be rendered in the US.

In Europe and the UK, they have no such law.

[philsfan24]

i cant believe this crap. acs has received my last donation. the word needs to spread on what this organization is doing. most people have no clue what they are donating too. are there any other cancer foundations out there that can be donated to besides acs that dont have socialist agendas?

[Mrs.Z]

***rationing healthcare people will go in for fewer routine cancer screenings.***

Super idiot Edwards proposed mandating yearly checkup for all Americans.

Do the math.

There are less than a million licensed physicians in this country.

If they had to do yearly physicals on everybody, they would have no time for anything else.