ObamaCare: Let the Rationing Begin

Last week,  the Federal Government Ivory Tower trumpeted important news.  One of its illustrious Task Forces has decided that women in their 40’s would be the first to experience “Medical Darwinism.”

The United States Preventive Services Task Force, comprised of 16 appointees, decreed that:

1.       Women in their 40’s no longer need routine yearly mammograms

2.       Women aged 50-74 are to have mammograms only every other year

3.       Self breast exams are no longer to be done at any age

Of note, this Task Force does NOT have even one member who is a cancer specialist or oncologist, let alone a breast cancer specialist. This panel based its recommendations NOT on comprehensive new clinical studies or research, but rather on computer projections of certain data points.  A review of previous recommendations by the same Federal Government reveals that these recommendations are diametrically at odds with recommendations made just six months ago. So, what changed in six months?

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Tags: Arlen Specter, bending the cost curve, breast cancer, breast cancer screening, cost containment
Posted Nov 29th 2009 at 6:35 pm in Congress, Healthcare, Obama, Politics | 3791476 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/djanda/2009/11/29/obamacare-let-the-rationing-begin/ObamaCare%3A+Let+the+Rationing+Begin2009-11-30+01%3A35%3A18Dr.+David+Janda

ObamaCare Won’t Work as Promised: Here’s the Proof

The controversy surrounding the recent mammography guidelines issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is a recommendation for swift and decisive defeat of efforts to expand federal oversight of health care.  It almost seems as if this was designed as a laboratory experiment to learn exactly what will happen under Obamacare.  The results validate some of the most compelling arguments that opponents have made over the past few months.

When opponents claim that Obamacare will lead to rationing of medical services, defenders counter with an irrelevant but true retort that care is already rationed by insurance companies.  By this logic, everything is rationed by economics.  Housing is rationed by the availability of capital to invest in housing which is a collective market choice.  Cars are rationed in that you can’t just walk into a dealer and drive off the lot.  So, yes, currently the health care market, mostly in the form of third-party payers (insurers and public programs), rations care in that there are finite resources to pay for treatments and everyone cannot have everything any time they wish.

The reason that argument is irrelevant is that the debate here is about government rationing of care, which represents an entire new level of restrictions on individuals.  When the government sets up panels of “experts” to make recommendations of what kind of care is appropriate under what circumstances and those recommendations are implemented in the form of regulations over what care will and will not be paid for by both private and public insurance, it limits the rights of patients to control their care in consultation with their physicians.  It also destroys the market for those excluded treatments which then become either prohibitively expensive or entirely unavailable.

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Tags: American Cancer Society, bending the cost curve, breast cancer, cost containment, federal health care spending
Posted Nov 29th 2009 at 7:31 am in Congress, Featured Story, Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics | 3393856 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dobrien/2009/11/29/obamacare-wont-work-as-promised-heres-the-proof/ObamaCare+Won%27t+Work+as+Promised%3A+Here%27s+the+Proof2009-11-29+14%3A31%3A47Doug+O%26%2339%3BBrien

Big Government the Wrong Answer on Health Care

Last weekend Democrats in the U.S. Senate took another step toward passing their government run healthcare legislation.  The more we have come to learn about this legislation, the more we all have cause to be concerned about this plan. It fundamentally does not focus on patients or on quality care.  In fact, it is a fiscal albatross for our already ballooning federal budget deficit.

This proposal will cost taxpayers up to $2.5 trillion, create a massive new entitlement, raise taxes, add to the federal deficit and fail to solve our nation’s health care crisis.  It is the kind of big government answer that we have come to expect from Democrats, particularly my opponent, Barbara Boxer. It is the same answer that has proven to fail this country time and time again.

Among the many problems with this legislation, of significant concern is the impact it will have on the ability of doctors and individuals to make decisions about care, particularly for women. Last week a government appointed panel issued a set of recommendations regarding mammograms and self-exams for women in their 40s and 50s. Specifically, this panel discouraged women from self-exams, said women in their 40s should not get annual mammograms as is currently advised, and recommended women in their 50s get mammograms just every two years. As a breast cancer survivor who found my own cancer through a self-exam just two weeks after a routine mammogram, I was alarmed.  To be honest, if I had followed these recommendations I am not sure what my own prognosis would have been.

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Tags: breast cancer, government health care, mammograms, ObamaCare, Pelosicare
Posted Nov 24th 2009 at 8:20 pm in Healthcare, News, Politics | 3672667 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/cfiorina/2009/11/24/big-government-the-wrong-answer-on-health-care/Big+Government+the+Wrong+Answer+on+Health+Care2009-11-25+03%3A20%3A51Carly+Fiorina