Breast Cancer Controversy: Will Reform Impose Guidelines?

Here's your sign.......... women 1st victims of government control health care. I thought 'women and children first' was for safety and protection. This administration is selling us down the river. Women's health is secondary. Mamagrams, self checks, we don't need them. They are just boobs. I think we need to focus on the boobs in congress. Surgery is needed. Start now by contacting them. They are wrong,tell them that they will be VOTED OUT! STOP PLAYING DOCTOR!

The republicans use numbers that are meaningless. Signing up 5000 new to insurance is a sin. The 3.5% turndown of service by major ins co's, of course they have successfully with these same republicans weeded out most risk patients. I want these republicans to get rid of the awful, failed Medicare and see what their constituents do to them. Lets have a controlled sign uo of all uninsred and see what happens to the republican claimed 3.5%.

Thank you, Dr. Bernadine Healy for championing the already established protocols in the fight against breast cancer! Obviously, the so-called new 'directive' sends out a very 'grave' message - - - to effectively disempower women in their ablility to monitor their own physical well being and good health!! What utter nonsense! This is the same thing as 10+ years ago when so many hormone-pushing and pharmaceutical kickback taking medical doctors gladly doled out Provera (HRT) to peri-menopausal women as though it were sugar-coated placebos - "Take this - don't ask questions - this will help you!" (Yeah, right... help give you weight gain, heart attack, breast density and potential cancer!) Cancer IS a DEFINITE CRITICAL RISK - it is jaw dropping as to why would ANYONE want to reverse the guidelines in an ugly attempt to undo the benefits and progress of the last two decades! Why would ANYONE advise women against a monthly self-exam when a preponderance of cancers are detected by the patients themselves or their partners! Why would ANYONE advise against routine annual mammograms to check for cancers and lesions?? Obviously, it is all about MONEY - - - NOT SAVING LIVES! There is SOMEONE responsible for this transparent 'circling of the wagons' - it is simply 'setting up' Americans to get ready for the substandard reform the government wants to cram into new policy change!!

It appeared George’s guest on “This Week” had read and understood the health care bill except for Debbie Wasserman Shultz. George did a great job correcting Shultz’s distortion of the truth and then she looked foolish back peddling to cover up her prevarications. Representative Schultz may not have been a breast cancer survivor had the health care plan she is touting had been in effect.

So Republicans don't care about the women who have cancer CAUSED by the x-ray exposure of excessive mammography?

There is a reason that medicine relies on scientific studies and research rather than partisan posturing, but Republicans didn't care about Bin Laden more than politics (remember the "Monica Missiles" attacks on Clinton when he tried to kill Bin Laden?) and they don't care about women's lives now.

I watch your show every week but I found this part of the show today almost unwatchable with those two women constantly talking over each other. Can't you turn off mics when that happens?

Ladies speak in turn!

Also if EVERYONE agrees that we need Health Care Reform how come we never get it! We have needed Health Care Reform for YEARS! Take away all the health care options the lawmakers enjoy today and I bet we would get reform tomorrow!

This is a travesty of journalism. 60 votes last night in the Senate - and you bring on 75% who are opposed to the bill? Give me a break.

On the video above you cut out the most important part where Marsha Blackburn reads and details the specific wording in the bill... and George agrees with her that it is what it says... that these guidelines WILL become law.

Access Medline or Pubmed, and enter "antidepressants" and "cancer." Waiting to be retrieved are more than sixty articles on the remarkable anticancer properties of antidepressants. You don't have to scratch your head wondering why the media is concealing this.

First, matt, you make a very good point. What is that all about? 60 votes in the Senate last night. Where are the folks who support health care reform and moving this country forward?

Second, I wish more people would read health care related journals and blogs. The news about mammograms is not brand new information based on one study that just came out. The World Health Organization, and many European countries where the government pays for routine mammography screening, already follow these guidelines.PLUS, the mission of the Preventative Services task force is to provide evidence-based recommendations and treatment guidelines for clinicians—they are not charged with rationing care. Appointed by HHS, they are an independent group.

Obama and Dems message: kill the unborn first.. then kill the mothers.. even the left wing radical democrats haven't read the bill.. this completely stupid woman is proof of that

Did you not watch the program this morning these recomendations will become law if the bill is passed even George had to read that part of the bill to prove the point. Why would anyone post a comment like republicans dont care about women, cant believe anything you say.

My private (not government) healthcare company has ALREADY instituted the new guidelines. Public option vs. private coverage is not even relevant in this particular discussion, except that the HHS secretary could (in theory) override such guidelines for public plans. My insurance company is busy calculating their increased profits based on these guidelines.

It was certainly apparent by this discussion who was relying on facts and knowledge of the legislation as opposed to those who play on peoples emotions.

I knew the Dems were up to something with this health care bill....now they want more women (and men) to die from breast cancer!

I guess depleting the American population is cheaper than saving it!

If Obama's government really wanted to do us a favor, screening would start at age 30 AND he'd put more effort in the economy!

1. The fearmongering has already begun. I'm all for intelligent debates, but those who are trying to control you with fear should be ignored.

2. Attacking the new recommendations is worthwhile inasmuch as it may bring new thoughts to the table. However, there is a cutoff where it doesn't make sense to do routine mammography. Seriously, should we have routine scans of girls beginning in their teenage years? Obviously not. Recommendations like this, however, generally have a lot of loopholes (i.e. those at higher risk should be screened). The analysis made by the recommendations was that there was just as likely to be harm from overtesting as from missed cancers.

Let's look at some of the facts that ABC News did not cover.

Marsha Blackburn gets generious campaign contributions from health professionals, pharmaceuticals, and insurance companies. She also accepts contributions from oil companies, which pollute environment causing our health care costs to skyrocket.

Individual contributors to Marsha Blackburn's election campaigns include CVS, American College of Cardiology, and American College of Radiology. They also include Pfizer, which the Obama Administration punished for defrauding Medicare.

So Marsha Blackburn has vested interests in destroying health care reform, and vested interests in fabricating lies about mammograms.
Actually, the people most likely to deny mammograms to women under 50 are health insurance companies, simply because they want to make a profit. For profit health insurance companies are also eager to drop women who get breast cancer because treatments interfere with the bottom line. Under the current system, women pay up to 48% more for health insurance than men.

Unlike private, for-profit insurance, a public option is in fact run by the public, so the public can of course decide to include mammograms if they feel this helps fight breast cancer, and both the NIH and Jean Sibelius have in fact emphasized this.

So while Marsha Blackburn accuses the Obama Administration of rationing health care, we already have a rationed health care system. The quality of your health care depends on the amount of money you pay. And of course, Marsha Blackburn's health care is paid for by the tax-payer, so she sees nothing wrong with denying millions of women the health care they need.

Marsha Blackburn is another example of the lying and fraud that characterizes the GOP. She does not deserve the attention she is getting.

Obama had nothing to do with this. He was in China.

The beginning of the end folks!

In order to save $100M for 'Obamacare', women under 50 shouldn't get mammograms,
and the frequency for Pap smears was recommended to be reduced.
Women will be nudged to get less preventive medicine, is this OK? Not a bit.
Why does the Surgeon General allow such nonsense, this unnecessary contribution of women?
Perhaps, in the working group of 'health care socialists', you need every possible idea to scratch the money
together needed for this 'historic enterprise'!
On the other hand, they are going to spend $100M extra in efforts to secure this NYC terrorist trial.
If you compare both issues and numbers, the women's health is more important than the fuzz and feeblemindedness of this civilian trial.
American women - stand up for your preventive medical care. Please write to your representative or senator in order to give them a
wake-up call.

I thought the timing of the release of these studies was questionable and tht the stories were planted. Now, I can see that they were. Americans fall for Republican tricks of propaganda like this far too often. These stories were planted so that they would become a controversy right before the vote. Let's not keep falling for this.

I thought the timing of the releases of the two women's studies was questionable. Now I can see that these were times by the Republican machine to be used as propaganda for this healthcare battle. Most Americans want healthcare reform, so let's not fall for the propaganda this time.

Marsha Blackburn is my congress "person" and she will lie when the truth would serve. Hopefully she will not be our congress "person" long because she SUCKS and doesn't care one whit about the people in her district.

travelertraveler--You are so right!! I just don't get the objection to changes to our healthcare. Republicans keep fearing the government restricting doctors and not covering so many tests and procedures--oh, wait, that's what we have now, only it's the insurance companies doing it to us!!!! They just don't want to have every working person have access to affordable insurance...Christians, I ask-WWJD????

This smells to high heaven, and should be investigated as to WHY this group broke this ridiculousness report right before the health care clousure vote. I have a feeling you will find the sticky fingers of Big Insurance and a few Republicans sweeten the deal for this "committee".