Seeking Reaction: Bush's Budget Cuts Make Cancer Scarier

The Pasadena Star News ^ | March 21, 2006 | Bob Hebert

[WayneLusvardi]

The Bob Hebert column states that if cancer is detected then these women would automatically qualify for insurance coverage.

[WayneLusvardi]

Here's the end-product of our group on-line journalism posted at http://www.pasadenapundit.com. Kudos to all.

March 21, 2006
Pasadena Scare News
Bush Causes Cancer!
"I am sorry Mrs. Smith, you have a Bushanoma and you will die before the end of the day." - msnimje by email
March 21, 2006 - Vetted by Editorial Staff

In an apparent response to challenges from the Pasadena Pundit to focus greater local newspaper coverage on cancer rather than overblown cancer scares about perchlorate and miniscule traces of drugs in drinking water, the Pasadena Scare News has cherry-picked an article by Bob Herbert at the New York Times to publish in today's newspaper entitled ""Bush's Budget Cuts Make Cancer Scarier" (see: (http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/opinions/ci_3622203). Anytime the word "scary" appears in a headline you can turn on your propaganda radar detection antenna.

Columnist Herbert writes:
The federal government has a national breast and cervical cancer early detection program, run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It provides screening and other important services to low-income women who do not have health insurance or are underinsured. There is agreement across the board that the program is a success. It saves lives, and it saves money. Its biggest problem is it doesn't reach enough women. At the moment, there is only enough funding to screen one in five eligible women. A sensible policy position for the Bush administration would be to expand funding for the program so that it reached everyone who was eligible. In terms of overall federal spending, the result would be a net decrease. Preventing cancer, or treating it early, is a lot less expensive than treating advanced cancer. So what did this president do? He proposed a cut in the program of $1.4 million (a minuscule amount when you're talking about the national budget), which would mean that 4,000 fewer women would have access to early detection.

What Herbert does not tell you is that the purported funding cut in the CDC Early Screening for Breast and Cervical Cancers, funded at $200.6 million in 2003 (see: (http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/nbccedp/about.htm) is not a funding cut at all. To the contrary, in leftist journalistic parlance, a "funding cut" is defined as a decline in the rate of a funding increase. A 4% funding increase to adjust for monetary inflation would be $8.02 million. A $1.4 million reduction in that increase would mean that program funding was still increased by $6.62 million.

Another distortion in Herbert's column is that President Bush had nothing to do with this so-called funding cut. The last time I looked we lived in a democracy, which means divided government (executive, legislative, courts). The funding cut originated from Congress, not President Bush. Bush would only have the power to veto any such legislation, or possibly exercise a line-item veto. But Bush has been reluctant to cut any Federal social or health programs.

The Pasadena Scare News' post of Bob Herbert's column comes on the heels of former President Bill Clinton's reported recent establishment of a Breast Cancer Fund (see: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=1279399&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312). As one person commented to the Pundit on Clinton launching a breast cancer fund: "I will have to admit this is one area where Slick Willie was much more personally involved than Bush. Slick...did much personal research in the area of breasts and cervix early detection" (from mind-numbed robot by email).