If You Like the Government Reducing Your Ability to Get Mammograms, You're Gonna Love ObamaCare!

Silver bullet, AHFF Geoff says.

Under health-care reform legislation pending in Congress, the task force's recommendations would be used to help determine the basic coverage that insurance companies would need to offer for preventive services. But task force officials said that played no role in the panel's decision and costs were never considered. In fact, the task force decided to review the mammography guidelines and completed the bulk of its work years before the presidential election and the reform push, Ned Calonge, the panel's chairman, said in an interview.

...

A top federal health official said Wednesday that the controversial new guidelines for breast cancer screening do not represent government policy, as the Obama administration sought to keep the debate over mammograms from undermining the prospects for health-care reform.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, in a written statement, said the new guidelines had "caused a great deal of confusion and worry among women and their families across this country," and she stressed that they were issued by "an outside independent panel of doctors and scientists who . . . do not set federal policy and . . . don't determine what services are covered by the federal government."

Um, yes, but when government has taken over health-care, and is scrambling to "bend the curve" to reduce costs so that it can pay for 40 million new clients, the task force's determinations will become government policy.

posted by Ace at 07:01 PM

| Access Comments