Todd Stroger wants to kill poor women
Yahoo (Reuters--Julie Steenhuysen) reports that Partnership for Prevention, a nonprofit health policy group, has written a report saying that 100,000 lives per year could be saved in the United States by five preventive health procedures.
From the Partnership for Prevention website:
Remember, African-American women are disproportionately victims of breast cancer. This is especially true in Chicago. And Cook County Board President Todd Stroger wants to cut breast cancer screening. See this earlier entry on Proviso Probe.
When Mark Pera (D-Western Springs, challenging Congressman Dan Lipinski in primary) took grief from Democracy for America activists for not supporting universal health care he pleaded that he supported making health care accessible.
Breast cancer is a very good example of why accessible health care is inferior to universal health care.
The difference between universal health care and accessible health care is the difference between living and dying. Under universal health care a woman gets mammograms in acordance with the current recommended practices. This allows detection and treatment.
Under a system that emphasizes health care accessibility the cancer is allowed to get more advanced before being treated.
The galling thing is that in most cases it's cheaper to detect cancer early and treat it than to let it progress and then treat it.
When Todd Stroger says he wants to cut mammograms he is advocating policy that will kill poor women.
And when politicians say they are for something less than universal health care they are advocating policies that will kill people with preventable illnesses, like the flu, colorectal cancer and breast cancer.
From the Partnership for Prevention website:
3,700 additional lives would be saved each year if we increased to 90 percent the portion of women age 40 and older who have been screened for breast cancer in the past 2 years. Today, 67 percent of women have been screened in the past 2 years.
Remember, African-American women are disproportionately victims of breast cancer. This is especially true in Chicago. And Cook County Board President Todd Stroger wants to cut breast cancer screening. See this earlier entry on Proviso Probe.
When Mark Pera (D-Western Springs, challenging Congressman Dan Lipinski in primary) took grief from Democracy for America activists for not supporting universal health care he pleaded that he supported making health care accessible.
Breast cancer is a very good example of why accessible health care is inferior to universal health care.
The difference between universal health care and accessible health care is the difference between living and dying. Under universal health care a woman gets mammograms in acordance with the current recommended practices. This allows detection and treatment.
Under a system that emphasizes health care accessibility the cancer is allowed to get more advanced before being treated.
The galling thing is that in most cases it's cheaper to detect cancer early and treat it than to let it progress and then treat it.
When Todd Stroger says he wants to cut mammograms he is advocating policy that will kill poor women.
And when politicians say they are for something less than universal health care they are advocating policies that will kill people with preventable illnesses, like the flu, colorectal cancer and breast cancer.
Labels: breast cancer, health care, Partnership for Prevention, Yahoo
posted by Carl Nyberg at
11:09 PM
1 Comments:
Let me start by saying: Yes the healthcare system in this country is broken and needs to be fixed.
I do not believe in universal healthcare however:
Before I give all the reasons why let me start with the one that should be the most obvious to everyone.
The Government can’t be trusted with Social Security, welfare reform, VA hospitals, etc. and you want to put the health care system in their hands???? Need I say more? They can not keep our Social Security numbers from being misused. Pay for Medicare for the elderly and you wish to put all of health care in their hands…Perhaps we should start out with psychiatric care for you!
Now let’s get down to brass tacks: I know people who visit Europe on regular basis for their jobs. The people over their pay well into the 40%+ for income taxes, and some chose to still pay to visit private doctors so they don’t have to wait all day in the “cattle call” room. If they did that they would loose a day or more in pay. They told my friends sometimes its twelve hours plus to wait just to be seen if there are tests it’s longer, and that’s for a simple visit.
I also have a friend who has relatives in Canada, his friends wife died there waiting six months for an MRI they suspected she had cancer but the MRI was booked for over six months. The cancer had spread so far it was inoperable before she got in for the test. He was told if they had caught it when she first went in they may have been able to get it in time.
If universal health care is so great why do those who can afford to do so come from abroad to the United States for treatment?
I have a friend that works for a Mayo Clinic hospital in MN. She told me there are people from all over the world at Mayo for the treatment they can not get in their country.
Why….? Because the U.S. has the best doctors and the most advanced treatment in the world, that’s why.
We all know why, because its dollar driven, do the pharmaceutical companies make way to big a profit hell yeah, I think if they didn’t they wouldn’t work to hard to find medication to treat diseases. That’s a sad truth. The world has become a place where it’s not for the good of man. It’s what will make me a dollar? If we take that motivation away I believe medical breakthroughs will come to a stand still. It’s an unfortunate and sad reality.
I started by saying it’s broke and needs fixing. I do not know what the answer but I don’t believe its universal health care.
And on a side note: I do not believe you can sue a doctor within the universal health care system in Europe or Canada if they make an error. I think its just ooops if you can sue its not an open checkbook it’s very tightly limited. This I am not 100% sure of but thought I read something about it recently.
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Anonymous, at 5:44 PM, August 09, 2007
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