Oops! Hip or Knee Replacement?

Talk about a slip, Freudian or otherwise!

A federal gov't task force this week announced that mammograms weren't really necessary until age 50, that they were either a waste of time and money or, worse, could have debilitating effects on recipients. Yeah, sure.

The number of women between 50 and 60 who are saved is 1 of every 1300 or so mammograms. Those between 40 and 40 are only, ha, only, 1 of every 1900. Tell that to the women whose lives were saved.

Of course, the foolishness of that had to be countered. K Sibelius (with the personality and charisma of a small soap dish, how did she get so far in politics?) quickly said, well, that's not the official gov't position. Could she have said this with less emotion, less conviction? I think that small soap dish could have shown a bit more life.

More important, this slip lets something else out. What if the single-payer, fed gov't health care becomes law? Will this gov't panels findings then allow the fed gov't to deny mammograms to women under 50? Don't chuckle and say, "How ridiculous!?!? That won't ever happen." No? Do some research, say, in Washington state. A similar panel makes decisions for Medicaid holders. Hip replacement surgery, arthroscopic knee surgery, among other procedures are no longer covered as being "too expensive," "not worthwhile," etc. Want to do some more research? Check similar situtations in Massachusetts, Kentucky....

Yet, we are going to allow our elected officials to pass a federal health care bill, one by the way, if similar state plans are any indication will not substantially increase the number of those covered. Oh, and the cost will skyrocket, esp after 10 years.

But that's OK. Our gov't talking heads, exec, legis, whatever dept, talk about the 12 trillion dollar national debt. Ha! There are four sets of accounting books. If an accurate picture is taken, I think we should include "unfunded" programs, you know, the ones that go on and aren't paid for, but aren't counted as "debt." If we do, the current amount is about 10 times that, yep, about 118 trillion dollars.

Yeah, let's trust these people. Yeah, let's make things secure and good for us, our children and grandchildren be damned. Those CEOs sure were selfish, weren't they????