The recent talk about mammograms has me intrigued. One camp says that women really don’t need a mammogram until she is 50. Another camp says that they can save lives.
Today’s Fresno Bee states: “The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said Monday the benefits of mammograms for women in their 40s were not worth the anxiety and costs for false results that lead to unnecessary diagnostic tests – and also did not improve survival odds. The task force said that beginning in their 50s, women should get mammograms every other year, and women shouldn’t bother doing breast self-exams.”
WHAT? How many women’s lives have been saved by a mammogram showing a lump that could not be felt yet? And how many women have found a lump and then been diagnosed with breast cancer as a result of a self-exam?
I don’t believe “anxiety” plays a role here at all. If there was a concerning area on a mammogram, tests wouldn’t cause me anxiety. I would know that my doctors were researching a potential problem. Isn’t it better to be proactive when it comes to life-threatening illnesses? Mammograms? No big deal. They cause me no anxiety. They’re 30 minutes out of my year.
Somehow, just somehow, I think the word “cost” is the bigger issue here.
The proposed plan, almost 2,000 pages of new laws that most of our lawmakers have not even read, will cost approximately $500 million per page. $500 MILLION. And yet it will only affect you and me. Not the lawmakers. Hmm. Yes, our healthcare needs reform. But let’s find something that works for the benefit of everybody and every body.
If this is a sneak preview into proposed healthcare, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
