Yesterday, a federal panel decided that self-exams and some mammograms are no longer necessary for women in their forties and should only be administered every other year for those in their fifties and sixties. Despite being said to reduce cancer deaths by about 15% in women ages 39-59, the federal panel based their decision to change the guidelines because they concluded too much money was spent on “unnecessary tests.”
Sound familiar? That’s probably because it’s the same rationale for many of the decisions made by the government rationing boards in Britain and Canada.
And the results speak for themselves. Where mammograms are used much more infrequently than the U.S., breast cancer mortality rates are 9 percent higher in Canada and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom!
Is this what we are to expect once we have government-run health care as well?