Posted on 11/18/2009 6:12:25 AM PST by shortstop
It's a death sentence.
Our first taste of Obamacare -- the government as the arbitrer of what health care we do and don't need -- will kill thousands of women.
It is a death list by another name.
A federal task force has declared that for most women mammograms are unnecessary before the age of 50 and should only be administered every other year after that. Further, breast self-exams are no longer recommended.
In a fight with a horrific disease in which early detection is the most-effective tool, America's women have been told by their government to forget about it.
Previous recommendations, based on years of experience and analysis, were for most women to begin annual mammograms at age 40 and to perform monthly breast self-exams starting at puberty. Countless thousands of women's lives have been saved by following that prudent, simple process.
The discovery of a lump or a mammogram anomoly led to further testing and treatment, and that jump on fighting cancer in many instances saved lives. Without that jump on the disease, it is an incontrovertable fact that women will die.
According to the federal government, however, that's OK.
Apparently there is some threshold at which unnecessary death is acceptable.
At least in the mind of the bureaucracy that is about to be put in charge of the nation's health care. The folks who want health care reform have tipped their hand with this first insight into rationing.
How will the government reduce the cost of health care? By allowing less of it. The savings in this new pronouncement alone are staggering. A good portion of an entire health-care industry has been swept away. Most women in their 40s are no longer going to be patients of breast-care clinics, and all the women over 40 are only going to go half as often. As much as 70 percent of the American mammography market just dried up.
Clinics will close, specialists will be diverted to other diseases, jobs will be lost.
And money will be saved.
The federal government, in an interesting coincidence, will pay out far less in Medicaid and new "public option" money.
But, unavoidably, people will have to die. Because it is a fact that each year women in their 40s have their breast cancer discovered in a routine mammograms. And it is also a fact that each year women or their husbands discover bumps which are breast cancer. And a certain percentage of women over 50 will have their tumors grow another entire year before they are discovered -- with the consequent deterioration of their condition.
And why? Why is it that the federal panel has taken this big sea change?
Because of the anxiety and inconvenience caused by false positives.
Seriously. Women who have an unusual mammogram, and have to come back for a sonogram or biopsy, end worrying about it. And that worry is a bad thing.
Of course, so is dying.
Further, there is the inconvenience of performing tests to verify the possibility of cancer.
Anxiety and convenience. According to the government, those are the reasons. At least the ones they will say out loud. Because the fact is that eliminating these life-saving screeings will be a vast cost savings. This is one of those ways the feds are going to "cut costs" so they can pay for their health-care reform. The cheapest treatment is no treatment and the candidate who said preventative medicine was the smartest medicine is presiding over a government which is turning its back on lifesaving cancer screening.
Because it's inconvenient.
This is what death panels do. They decide life and death. In this case, not specifically who will die, but that some will die. Some will die in order that others won't be inconvenienced. Some will die in order that health-care costs can be cut.
Let the rationing and the grave digging begin.
This is exactly why Barack Obama and the Democrats are not to be trusted with health care. This exactly why health-care decisions should involve patients and doctors, not beaurocrats or politicians.
But this isn't about politics, or whose side who is on. This is, plain and simple, about what is best for women's health. And there is no doubt that early screening is best for women's health. The government's task force may believe there is acceptable level of death, in exchange for convenience, but if the woman who passes away is your mother or your sweetheart -- or if it is you -- then every life is sacred and no needless death is tolerable. There are women who pray to live long enough to raise their children, or to spend another year in their career or with their husband, women for whom every day of life is precious and endangered -- and this policy says those women are, essentially, expendable.
Bull crap.
This is intolerable.
This is the rationed, death-list medicine of our darkest nightmares. This is the government run amuck.
This is between a woman and her doctor. And this is between the medical community and its patients. Experience, real doctors and the American Cancer Society all say that early mammograms and regular self-exams save lives.
So the question is: Who do you believe? The government, or everybody else.
Or, put another way: Do you know anyone who was diagnosed via mammogram before she turned 50? Do you know anyone who discovered her own tumor by self-exam?
Most of us answer "Yes" to those questions.
That means most of us know people who would have been killed by this policy.
Yep...glad you brought that up before it goes down the memory hole:
tell all those chumps in gubmint we think it would be cost effective to stop screening for prostate cancer.
>>>Welcome to Rationing 101.
Doesn’t the current policy already reflect rationing since it proposes that healthy women wait until they are 40. What if a healthy 25 year old woman wants to get a mammogram? Will insurance cover it?
Only "productive citizens" need apply, Please report for your end of life counseling.< / Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel>
If a woman is otherwise healthy, would a scan be necessary at age 25 ?
One of our local news programs in Boston painted it as being the fault of the evil insurance companies... (implying that their lobbyists must have pushed for it)
One of our local news programs in Boston painted it as being the fault of the evil insurance companies... (implying that their lobbyists must have pushed for it)
>>>If a woman is otherwise healthy, would a scan be necessary at age 25 ?
That is the question being raised by this policy. If a woman is otherwise healthy, would a scan be necessary at age 40? There appears to be consensus on this thread that there is some benefit for women to begin at 40 instead of age 50. Would there similarly not be some benefit of beginning at age 20 instead of age 40?
Exactly, and the next step is medicare will discontinue paying a penny on mammograms which will allow the supplemental insurance to disallow them and eureka...everyone saves money. We all better get our burial prepaid policies while they are still a bargain!
Now, the culture of death refuses to permit treatment of the tidal wave of breast cancer it caused.
So much for women's "liberation." When will women learn you can't fool Mother Nature, and you can't break the Natural Law without there being dire consequences?
And men sit back silent, because they are the ones who ultimately benefit from hormonal birth control pills and legalized abortion, by indulging in procreation without procreating.
I'm beginning to think this is part of the plan to wear down resistance to government daycare, the next step in our socialist utopia. Think about it: There is no mommy. Daddy has to go to work and daddy's single income can't afford private day care.
A his bill isn’t even law yet!
We haven’t hit bottom yet, it’s a shame.
>>>It won’t only end up killing women, it will end up especially killing women in their 30’s and 40’s who have young children.
So do you support guidelines for annual maamograms for healthy women beginning at age 30? Age 25? Age 20? The current guidelines do nothing for the young mothers in their 30s with children.
Obama also said it would save money, it does the opposite, but it saves lives. Obama was never called his lie.
NO ONCOLOGISTS ON THE DEATH PANEL.
Lots of democrat party “public health” hacks.
Reduce access to these screenings by women who cannot afford them. Their cancers are not detected in time, so they die off. Those who have sufficient PRIVATE insurance or otherwise can afford to pay for their own screenings will still get them and will survive.
Those who cannot afford them are not going to be paying as much in taxes as those who can, so they are weeded out of the population.
Once Obamacare is instituted, even using your own money to pay for treatments that are not approved by the government will be made illegal. Thus certain middle-aged women [who tend to start having expensive health problems] will be culled from the herd — except those deemed more equal than others of course. The likes of Michelle Obama will get all of the screenings and treatments she needs no matter what health policy is enacted, I promise you.
Interesting actuarial move in the coming Brave New World.
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