Here’s a taste of what’s to come for those on the government dole if Congress’s healthcare “reform” becomes law–and then we’ve to got figure out how to pay for it:
The eligibility age for state-subsidized breast cancer screening has been raised from 40 to 50 by the California Health and Human Services Agency, which will also temporarily stop enrollment in the breast cancer screening program.
The state’s decision, announced Dec. 1 and effective Jan. 1, follows a controversial federal recommendation last month that mammograms before the age of 50 are generally not needed.
However, the public health department also linked the change to California’s budget woes.
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Moreover, private health care systems such as Scripps Health have rejected the federal task force’s recommendation, choosing instead to keep the existing standard, which calls for a mammogram at age 40, with annual mammograms thereafter.
That means doctors will be using two medical practice guidelines, distinguished not by knowledge but by the pocketbook, said Dr. Jack Klausen, a gynecologist and obstetrician who practices at Vista Community Clinic.
“If we are in a situation where we don’t screen, but the private-practice doctor can screen, then we are actually not practicing to the standard of care,” Klausen said.
In its announcement, the state said the cuts were needed because of a projected budget shortfall for the California Department of Public Health, and from declining revenue from tobacco taxes.
Note that the state makes no bones about the fact that the reduced access to mammograms is stricly a cost-cutting measure. In other words, California is rationing healthcare and saying “Tough!” when, as is inevitable, some women in their 40s and early 50s die because they have no access to screenings that could have caught their cancer at an early stage.
That’s what happens when the government seizes control of healthcare delivery. Did someone out there say, “Death Panel.”?
My advice to California women: Take up smoking.
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