The new direction for Obamacare?
Well, with all that talk about lowering the health care spending, some changes had to be made. Today we see these changes come to life in the most direct way possible.
U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a twenty-five-year-old bureaucratic institution funded by the executive branch of the federal government today released their recommendations on lowering cancer monitoring and prevention. This is much more significant, if you take in account that the current legislation calls for this task force to actually set standards for coverage of preventive measures under medical insurance plans.
Article with detailed information
What do they recommend now in regards to the breast cancer screening:
Routine mammograms to start at age 50 not 40 and to be done every other year not every year.
End mammograms at age 74
Not teaching self-examination
I stumbled upon this while waiting to pay for my breakfast. This is on front page of Philadelphia Inquirer today. I am coming from a family where many women have been hit with breast cancer and few have died from it, so this is a sensitive topic for me. Mostly what I see is the mere fact that this signals the start of moving from routine screenings and education towards treating the disease in its developed forms. This correlates with the call to pay doctors for work done, not for services performed, as screening is simply a service with a yes/no answer at the end, while cancer treatment is very easily measurable. Patient alive - get a candy, patient dead - no candy.
UPD: The actual recommendation
U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a twenty-five-year-old bureaucratic institution funded by the executive branch of the federal government today released their recommendations on lowering cancer monitoring and prevention. This is much more significant, if you take in account that the current legislation calls for this task force to actually set standards for coverage of preventive measures under medical insurance plans.
Article with detailed information
What do they recommend now in regards to the breast cancer screening:
Routine mammograms to start at age 50 not 40 and to be done every other year not every year.
End mammograms at age 74
Not teaching self-examination
I stumbled upon this while waiting to pay for my breakfast. This is on front page of Philadelphia Inquirer today. I am coming from a family where many women have been hit with breast cancer and few have died from it, so this is a sensitive topic for me. Mostly what I see is the mere fact that this signals the start of moving from routine screenings and education towards treating the disease in its developed forms. This correlates with the call to pay doctors for work done, not for services performed, as screening is simply a service with a yes/no answer at the end, while cancer treatment is very easily measurable. Patient alive - get a candy, patient dead - no candy.
UPD: The actual recommendation