To the Editor:
Re “New Guidelines Suggest Cutback in Mammograms” (front page, Nov. 17):
The new recommendations are alarming. I received a diagnosis of breast cancer at 45, with no prior family history. By 50, I would have been dead.
Mammograms are noninvasive and may cause momentary discomfort. A routine dental cleaning can be worse.
Women avoid mammograms, I believe, because we fear losing our breasts—a terrifying aspect of the disease too long avoided in the breast cancer “fight.”
Playing on those fears, pushing back the recommended age to start routine mammograms is a cynical attempt to rein in health care costs—not for women’s benefit, but at our expense.
Ellen Kirschner
New York, Nov. 17, 2009
The writer is a 13-year breast cancer survivor.
Note from KBJ: I wrote about this two days ago.
Note 2 from KBJ: This is a perfect example of why so many people oppose government-run health care (whether in the form of a "public option" or in the form of a single-payer system). There will be a panel of "experts" (i.e., bean counters) who will decide that mammograms before 50 are not cost-effective. It will be illegal to have a mammogram before then, even if a woman is willing to pay for it. This is utilitarianism: sacrificing individuals for the greater good. You can be sure that Michelle Obama will get her annual mammogram starting at the age of 40. Ordinary women such as your mother, your wife, and your daughters will not. That's where we're headed, folks. When the government runs health care, agents of the state will decide who gets what, when, and how. Vote wisely next year. The life you save may be your own.
Note 3 from KBJ: Women are starting to see the connection. I hope it translates into opposition to ObamaCare. Government needs to stay out of health care. Individuals should provide for themselves. They should have freedom of contract to take out insurance against various health problems, such as cancer. There should be a nationwide health-insurance market, which will discipline health insurers. Let the insurers compete for customers. That will do more to drive down costs than anything the government can do. We need more liberty, not less.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 