Posted on 11/18/2009 5:06:31 PM PST by raptor22
Health Care: A government task force has decided that women need fewer mammograms and later in life. Shouldn't that be between patient and physician? We have seen the future of health care, and it doesn't work.
We have warned repeatedly that the net results of health care bills before Congress will be higher demand, fewer doctors, more cost control, all leading to rationing. New recommendations issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) regarding breast cancer and the necessity for early and frequent mammograms do not convince us otherwise.
Just six months ago, the panel, which works under the Health and Human Services Department as a "best practices" study group, was shouting its concern about a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study showing a 1% drop in the number of women regularly undergoing such screening and prevention.
The task force was saying that women older than 40 should get a mammogram every one to two years. It found that frequent screening lowered death rates from breast cancer mostly for women ages 50 to 69. But that was then, and this is now.
"We're not saying women shouldn't get screened. Screening does save lives," Diana Petiti, task force vice chairman, said of the recommendations published Tuesday in Annals of Internal Medicine. "But we are recommending against routine screening."
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Its like Pre-Death Panels testing the waters in Pre-Deathcare.
Can’t they just pay for it themselves?
I wonder what Ann Jillian and Christina Applegate (both breast cancer survivors) have to say about this.
The Dems and the Government are fixing to have a very large voting bloc very mad at them! I love how clueless the LIBS are!
Yep, they picked the wrong gender - prostate screenings would have been a safer target.
Didn’t Laura Ingram also have Breast Cancer awhile back? I’m sure she’s in her early to mid 40s.
Maybe if we start calling any and all medical tests and treatments abortion-related names, then they will back off. For men, I guess you’re out of luck there.
I don't know what Ann Jillian's brand of politics are, but I do know that Christina Appelgate is a hard core libturd 0bozo & dumboRAT supporter. She fit the character of airhead Kelly Bundy perfectly.
"Hey Cristina, let's hear you speak out now for 0bozo's health care plan, especially rationing of preventative mammogram checkups for women, kind of like yourself. Maybe you should have waited till you're 50 and taken your chances at that time."
All your boob are belong to us!
If you mean Laura Ingraham, yes.
I suspect that she won’t care as long as she has enough money to go somewhere and buy premium health care.
Just about every woman in this country has either had breast cancer, or knows someone, personally who has battled this disease. It's not an academic exercise for us.
SAVE THE TATAS
Although the administration has disclaimed responsibiliy from this and has experessed their intentions to disregard it, that political response must not be allowed to distract from the IMPORTANT LESSON:
This was “Breast Care Rationing” came from PRECISELY the type of “expert panel” that MUST BE employed in any type of system that is NOT BASED ON CAPITALISM. Nota Bene: This does not apply ONLY to health care, However, this is a good opportunity for education.
By its very nature, an increasingly high tech field, there will ALWAYS be shortages of services and products in the medical area. Some mechanism MUST and WILL be employed to allocate these. The beauty of the capitalist system is that allocation is done automatically, according to pricing mechanisms (Supply/Demand Curves) instead of employing necessarily political considerations. This mechanism forces the most economically efficient solution. In this country and almost every capitalist country the “most efficient” solution is modified by legal constrictions. The more constrictions, the less economically efficient the solution, and the greater the role of government bueaucrats. Additional bureaucrats ALWAYS impose additional costs. (Atomic power would easily be the least costly way to produce electricity if it weren’t for the layers of bureaucracy and regulation that have been forced on that industry in the name of psychological comfort. I do not claim all such cost increases are bad, simply that they exist.)
In government run health care, the bureaucrats WILL DEFINITELY use considerations other than pricing. The reason for his is that the first thing that bureaucrats do is ELIMINATE or severely constrict the price mechanisms. That necessarily changes the supply/ demand solutions, which in turn necessitates a different method of allocating resources. SOMEONE must decide how to allocate the scarce resources (”free” resources are ALWAYS scarce by the laws of supply and demand). Since no one is willing to take that responsibility themselves, some faceless (and for the politicians preferably nameless) group will inevitably be employed, so the politicans and bureaucrats can all point fingers at someone else. Since life and death decisions are involved, it is PROPER even if inflammatory to call these groups “Death Panels”.
Whether the subject is Breast Cancer screenings, Prostate Care, Long Term Care, H1N1 vaccines, and all other medical situations, that allocation will be done. The group making these decisions will be released from liability by the government. Their decisions could well be based on age (see Ezechiel Emmanuel), sex (see China), race (see South Africa), religion (see NAZI), politics (see USSR), existing conditions (heart health), obesity (defined how?), personal habits (smoking), hobbies (skydiving?), employment (See Kennedy), genetics, convenience (see abortion), desireability (Miss America vs Janie Slobgrass), and NO ONE KNOWS what else, but it is CERTAIN that politics will play a part in this process.
Are you in the politically favored groupings? How long will you remain politically favored? Who decides?
Here is a lesson for America. TRUST THIS FOR CERTAIN: if this “Breast Screening Rationing” had come AFTER America had government care in place, this WOULD HAVE happened. Instead of the administration backing away, they would have said, “well, the board of experts has spoken, taking into account all the relevant information.” Witness how politicians all wipe their hands of distress created by the EPA or FDA or FEMA or FannieMae or Fed decisions! “We didn’t do it” they all holler - “it was that stupid agency”.
Take this lesson to heart, America.
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