The Politics of Mammograms

So the second massive study in 12 years to reach the conclusion that routine mammograms for women in their 40's could be doing more harm than good has hit the streets and the reaction has been predictable.

Those who see this as nothing more than a ruse to cut total health care costs are accusing study proponents of abandoning women's health. Study proponents point to the size and scope of their study, and its non-ideological emphasis.

Here's the deal--you don't get to complain about rising health-care costs and tort reform (to discourage defensive medicine) at the same time you score cheap political points by questioning the timing or rationale for a study like this one. At some level of abstraction, we've got to go with the numbers. If the numbers tell us that there are too many false positives resulting in too many unnecessary procedures that have little or no impact on the survival rate--then we've got to go where the data takes us.

This really is an important test case for whether or not we're serious in this country about health-care reform--even the kinds of health-care reform that I and many readers of this blog want. If you want to control costs, you've got to discourage unnecessary procedures. If you discourage unnecessary procedures (known to some as "rationing"), some will slip through the cracks. Is this a risk we as a society are willing to take? Those who support Pelosi/Obamacare are dead wrong if they think the direction they are taking us in does not drive even more of these choices. It will, and patient care will be impacted.