‘Top Line’ — Did Breast Cancer Recommendations Revive ‘Death Panels’?
EmailABC News’ Rick Klein reports: The new recommendations for breast cancer screening are entirely unrelated to President Obama’s push for health care reform. But, in a particularly unfortunate stroke of timing for Democrats, the two issues have become confused and conflated in the minds of many observers. That’s left Republicans a huge political opening, Time’s Karen Tumulty, who covers health care policy and politics for the magazine, told us on ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” today: “You didn’t need to have much of a political antenna when you saw this come out of this panel of experts, saying not only should women not start getting mammograms until they’re 50 — rather than the generally accepted guideline of 40 — but that they shouldn’t even do breast self exams,” Tumulty said. “Even if this isn’t a government panel, it is something organized with the imprimatur of the government saying this. It is an easy one for the opponents of this bill to say hey, ‘You want to see what rationing looks like? That’s what it is.’ ” (Republicans have indeed jumped on the news — which may be one reason the Obama administration seems to repudiating the recommendations. “Let the rationing begin,” said Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee.) Tumulty feels strongly about this issue from a personal perspective: She’s a 22-year survivor of thyroid cancer, and has had several breast-cancer scares over the years. “I think it proves that even scientists can be pinheads,” Tumulty wrote in a blog post yesterday. “My issue is not with their recommendations on when and how often women should get mammograms. That seems worthy of debate. What I don’t get is their finding that women should not even do self-examinations. And why? Because if we find a lump, it might make us worried.” She told us today: “You can see the argument maybe on mammograms; it’s hard to see where this works on breast self-exams, which don’t cost anything but do sometimes send women to the doctor.” Her prediction for health care reform? “Maybe right before the State of the Union they can take a victory lap, and then move on to jobs, jobs, jobs,” she said. Watch the full discussion with Karen Tumulty HERE. We also got an update on health care from Capitol Hill from Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J. Watch that interview HERE.
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Unfortunately, those with an agenda to kill health reform will link them. Truth doesn’t matter to those folks…
Posted by: indy_voter | November 19, 2009, 3:48 pm 3:48 pm
Unfortunately, those who think Obama is the messiah will deny the link.
Truth doesn’t matter to those folks….
Posted by: jhw | November 19, 2009, 5:45 pm 5:45 pm
Freedom to die. Yes we Can.
Posted by: Freedom | November 19, 2009, 5:47 pm 5:47 pm
Those who will actually THINK and not just listen to what those in Washington are saying realize that yes, we do need health reform, but it certainly doesn’t look like anything the folks in Washington are selling.
If our elected officials would stop pandering to the special interests (unions and trial lawyers, in particular), they’d draw up a simple bill that would 1) allow insurance companies to sell policies across state lines, 2) enact tort reform, and 3) remove the incentive for people having to get insurance through their employers, almost all of the problems go away and the quality of service goes up — and it doesn’t cost anything!
The fact that the folks in Washington won’t address any of these issues is proof that they really aren’t doing this for the good of the country — it’s all about giving the government more power and more control.
My advice to the government: Don’t just do something, STAND THERE!
Posted by: lovethiscountry | November 19, 2009, 5:49 pm 5:49 pm
Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom.
Stepping into a government run health care system will be a big step backward.
Rationing is a fact of life in countries with government health care.
One recent round of proposed cuts drew this response:
“Dr. Brian Brodie, president of the BC Medical Association, called the proposed surgical cuts “a nightmare.”
“Why would you begin your cost-cutting measures on medically necessary surgery? I just can’t think of a worse place,” Brodie said”
Posted by: Joe White | November 19, 2009, 5:59 pm 5:59 pm
Are ‘Death Panels’ inevitable? It’s the denial that is wreaking that they are not being honest with the American people. They can get the bill passed under 900 Billion but it cannot be locked to prevent later amendments that inflate it to the anticipated levels that are horrifying.
Posted by: TX_MBell | November 19, 2009, 6:13 pm 6:13 pm
I’m not sure, but I’m sure the press will connect it and make sure it becomes an issue.
Posted by: Secondlook | November 19, 2009, 6:22 pm 6:22 pm
NONE of this matters, especially when you look at our debt
106 TRILLION IN UNPAID LIABILITIES!!! WOW
not to mention we just hit 12 trillion in actual debt
Posted by: adam | November 19, 2009, 6:23 pm 6:23 pm
Do you suppose Nancy Pelosi’s daughter will forego mammograms?
How about Michelle Obama? Will she nolonger get mammograms either?
Posted by: Kate | November 19, 2009, 6:26 pm 6:26 pm
This is what Obamacare looks like. Rationing care. The recomendation is for women who are 74 or above not to get any kind of screening for breast cancer. What next? No colonoscopies, no surgeries etc.?
Looks like a death panel to me.
Posted by: cw | November 19, 2009, 6:27 pm 6:27 pm
It’l be 60 years of age by the time the government is thru with it…..
Posted by: wayne | November 19, 2009, 6:28 pm 6:28 pm
The death pane; spoke before it is even in place…..
Posted by: wayne | November 19, 2009, 6:29 pm 6:29 pm
For all these people who are soooo afraid of “rationing” and “death panels”, I have a question:
Without “rationing”, how do you propose allocating a scarce resource like health care? Capitalism rations by cost. That is, people with less money get less care. If you don’t do it that way, it has to be done another way.
Right now insurance companies “ration” by deciding who and what they’ll cover. I suggest that these are the same “death panels” that are so feared by the paranoid right.
Are private insurance “death panels”, who are accountable only to shareholders and the profit motive intrinsically better than government run insurance, which at least will be accountable to the public? I’d rather have an entity that is responsive to the public than one whose reason for existence is profit.
Lastly, should there be any studies for determining what treatments are most effective and so are worthy of being covered? If not, how are we to judge where to put our limited resources to the best good?
Posted by: Socrates | November 19, 2009, 6:59 pm 6:59 pm
to many women are having breast cancer.. they should make some progresses for this… but wait..they are occupied with iran , irak and the oil industry
Posted by: Alex | November 20, 2009, 6:38 am 6:38 am
Socrates: You have a good point about health care rationing. It is going to happen, and already is in the way you describe. Where I differ with your conclusions is that having hundreds of different Insurance agencies with different rules and policy coverages, giving individuals choice, is a bad thing. If they default on their contract, they can be taken to court, not a option with goverment run health care. A private system also allows people to prioritise their own choice’s, not what the goverment chooses for them. It is all about choice, and who gets to choose, individuals or the unelected beaucrats who will be running the system. Remember the old welfare system, where 70 cents of every dollar spent went to goverment workers, not the people it was supposed to help. I put my trust in Private citizens and private companies I choose, not a bunch of government workers with no stake in the outcome.
Posted by: we_are_not_amused | November 20, 2009, 6:40 am 6:40 am
lovethiscountry, I agree and appreciate your comments. It’s a shame that Common Sense is no where to be found in Congress.
Posted by: Johnny L | November 20, 2009, 8:48 am 8:48 am
OK, think most will agree, that there will be rationing, and the cost of the Healthcare program will steer the Government toward default. As this has shown, any reasoned reduction will be politicized and then dropped.
You can’t have it both ways people. You either allow the reduction in health care for everyone ( as the scarce resource is allocated by the Government) or you break the bank when the government continues to overspend due to it’s inability to go against special interest groups in cutting overly expensive treatments that only impact a small group…
Posted by: akcita | November 20, 2009, 1:22 pm 1:22 pm