Comments about ‘Cancer screening confusion’

I have 2 sister in laws who would be dead if they followed this. This is not where you scrimp & save. Find a way to make the mamograms less expensive.

Does anyone think the reason this is being publicised NOW isnt for political reasons?

The government NEEDS find places where they can cut costs in medicine. If they can find some studies that indicate some of the tests and treatements we are now recieving can be painted as not effective enough to be cost efficient... they can eventually stop covering them.

Only 1 person with actual cancer is found for each 1900 scanned in the 30-40 age group, so why fund the 1900 tests? (Hint: If your the 1 in the group of 1900 you know why). But the GOVERNMENT is under preasure to find places and ways to CUT COSTS!!! So they are on the war-path to find as many tests and procedures and medications they can discredite and stop covering as they can.

This is just the beginning!

Insurance companies also benefit. When the Government deams a procedure or test not affective... Insurance no longer has to cover it as well. It becomes an "ELECTIVE" procedure not "REQUIRED" to be covered, so they can legally require the consumer to pay the full expense (because the government said it's innefective).

Let the trend begin.

equals death panels to those the government deems not worthy of its largesse. Too bad for the old and the sick under the democrat run health care.

We cannot rely on what is written and what we read in cases like this. It is totally out of line to suggest these tests are not needed. Women will go undetected and more would die from the late discoveries.

Agreed, insurance coverage is the target since most insurances now cover this as a preventative. Medicare does allow once a year for routine mamagrams. It is a cut that is just too deep to justify, if women are gullible enough to believe.
I don't. Perhaps our own invesitgative magazines, like 20/20 or Dateline could shed some light on this preposterous attempt to veil the real reason for this kind of report. $$$$ is the root of it.

Use your own judgment, especially if there is a family history to breast or cervical cancers.

The medicare system is bankrupcting the country. Breast cancer tests are just one example of over medicine. What is that one life in which a cancer has been missed worth? Is it worth all her children have a poor potential because all Americans will be burdened with crushing debt, unable to afford the mean basics of life? The fact is that this excess cannot go on, particularly in the elderly. China kicked Obama all over the Pacific. We can't borrow the money for this profligate living. I am a conservative, I feel that the Republicans are using this issue to work up the old and greedy. Shame on them. Shame on the Democrats. Rotten to the core.

It was Gladstone I think who said that the true measure of the character of any community is the attitudes that community holds toward the old and weak.

Frankly I don't see why a breast cancer exam once a year for the over forties woman is such an expensive item. It is preventative. If you end up having to treat these women for cancer later it will cost something too. Perhaps that is also not worth paying for. Oh how 'liberal' are the Democrats!! The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.

If it is so inexpensive for all these tests why don't people pay for them themselves if they are so concerned. It is the 100 million tests that are the problem, paid for by government.

I didn't say that the medical profession, whether privately funded or publicly funded, did / would not charge a lot for those exams, but suggested that it shouldn't be an expensive item. A woman has an x-ray and it is developed and examined for tumors. If, as in most cases, it is negative, that is it for another year.

Just for the record, one of the cost elements of an x-ray has been eliminated at most hospitals. Digital photography works as well with x-rays as it does with visible light. There is no film and no developing and the dosage required is much lower.

Now if they could just employ the same kind of optical analysis to x-rays as they do to other kinds of pattern recognition to speed up "reading" the photos…

Hmmm……

All preventitive medicine costs more than it saves money wise except pre-natal. The study is not news, it is the same thing that insurance companies know, which is why they aren't big on preventative care. Change the underwriting is community based rather than allowing them to avoid risk at all costs. The focus would change to preventitive medicine because it would be the only way to mitigate risk.

If I waited til 50 to get my first mammogram.....I would be dead. I was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 37 & I have NO family history of the disease! Had I not done a breast self examination I would not be here right now!! PLEASE GET MAMMOGRAMS AND CONTINUE SELF BREAST EXAMS!!!! This panel is totally irresponsible and should be help accountable.