Re: Obama on Health Care
But according to its review, because there are fewer cases of breast cancer in younger women,
it takes 1,904 screenings of women in their 40s to save one life and only 1,339 screenings to do the same among women in their 50s. It therefore concludes that the tests for the first group aren't valuable, while also noting that screening younger women results in more false positives that lead to unnecessary (but only in retrospect) follow-up tests or biopsies.
Of course, this calculation doesn't consider that at least 40% of the patient years of life saved by screening are among women under 50. That's a lot of women, even by the terms of the panel's own statistical abstractions. To put it another way, 665 additional mammograms are more expensive in the aggregate. But at the individual level they are immeasurably valuable, especially if you happen to be the woman whose life is saved.
Tell it to the woman it saves. Now we are getting on the slippery slope. Granted this study was done a 1.5 years ago according to another article I read or seen and it is normal for this panel to review and make new recommendations. The timing is bad for health care reformers and may give the public a looking glass into what they may be in for under Obamacare. It is leaving a bad taste for many women and the media is really playing it up. I watch the Nightly News with Ann Curry interview HHS Sec. Sebelius and Ann was not kind to her.
Socrates: "Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequaled alike."
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