Health Care--redux

This stuff is scarier and scarier. Apparently a new "study" has come out, finding that prostate testing is overdone. That, for every 50 men tested, only two test positive for prostate cancer isn't enough to justify tests for the other 48. Huh? Nope, the anxiety for the other 48 is just too much.

Ordinarily we could just laugh this off as another quack study, like pasta being bad for you. But with the health care plan.... Hmmm. Is this just a prelude to other "studies?" See, the gov't could, under its health care plan being proposed, merely say, "Ah, PSAs aren't worthwhile. We won't pay for them anymore." Does anyone see anything wrong with this? What about the two? How about the 48 who didn't know they didn't have prostate cancer? And what about other scenarios? What if one is older than 70? Is he too old to have a test that some study said wasn't worthwhile anyway?

Remember all these so-called studies. Doesn't it seem people can find some test somewhere to support their theses? Recall the British study (ha ha) that found US educational studies were usually flawed, predetermining outcomes to back the latest hogwash.

And remember about tests, medical tests. The schools think tests, more tests, and even more tests are great. Education? Bah, who cares about it. It's the test that matters! Schools aren't educating kids; they are teaching them to take tests. And, it's the schools' faults for doing such a lousy job over the past 30 years the public has demanded tests to try to show there is some learning going on. Had schools not become repositories for everything except real education, all these tests wouldn't be necessary.