While she has not yet “officially” announced that she is running for Senate, she has been on WGMD repeatedly to talk about it and said that she would officially kick of her campaign once she reaches 10K in donations.   I think it is fun to keep her around for the entertainment value – sort of like Mike Protack – just another perennial candidate that makes us laugh out a lot (or shake our heads in disbelief).

ANYWAY – my favorite comment of hers during the last radio interview was that she said it was the SOCIALIST AGENDA that caused the recommendations by the United States Preventive Services Task Force to begin breast cancer screening for women at age 50 rather then 401, as is the case right now. 

According to her, Socialists would change the age for screening because they do not care about the individual but they would change the age because screening at a younger age is not beneficial to the people at large.  It’s that tired old argument that socialists only do what benefits the greater good rather then any individual.

No Ms. O’Donnell – it’s not the SOCIALISTS that would change the age for screening, but the CAPITALISTS that want to remove one more procedure from the list of items health insurances have to cover and pay for.  The New York Times writes:

The guidelines are not expected to have an immediate effect on insurance coverage but should make health plans less likely to aggressively prompt women in their 40s to have mammograms and older women to have the test annually.

And I believe they are right – that is EXACTLY what will happen – health insurances will see a way to save money and act upon that, because…

Congress requires Medicare to pay for annual mammograms. Medicare can change its rules to pay for less frequent tests if federal officials direct it to.

Private insurers are required by law in every state except Utah to pay for mammograms for women in their 40s.

So the major benefit of changing the age for mamograms is the cost saving – does that sound like a socialist agenda item to you? 

Oh yeah, and I don’t consider myself a SOCIALIST but a SOCIAL DEMOCRAT.  Though, I doubt Ms. O’Donnell would know the difference between the two.

Sidenote: Having lived in a country with universal health care, I can not say that the individual is not cared for.  To give a few examples of my history with health care in Germany.

  • I rarely ever made appointments with my primary care doctor, most of my appointments where walk in with a wait of less then 30 minutes.
  • Dental care is part of the regular health insurance and not separate.  This was especially important to me when an accident at age 13 knocked out my two upper front teeth and required me to have first a partial and later a bridge to cover the gap. I walked into my dentists office without an appointment as soon as possible after the accident and left that same day (many hours later) with a partial denture to cover the gap (I was too young for a bridge at that time).
  • A school accident left me with a moderate concussion at age 16.  I walked into the Emergency room and, within an hour, was admitted into the hospital.  10 days and several brain scans later I was released with almost no residual effects of the concussion.  The reason they kept me rather then sent me home was that they know children do not lay still at home and because this was a moderate concussion that left me with no memory of the 2 hours following the event, they felt it was necessary to monitor me.  The concussion was so severe that I did not go to the hospital the day it happened but rather then next morning – when my parents thought I was on my way to school, I walked myself to the hospital 45 minutes away — I have no idea why I did that – I don’t remember much of the hours after I passed out (I passed out and hit my head on a sink).
  • When I was pregnant with my son I had some minor complications (very low blood pressure) and could see my doctor any time needed to address this. Unfortunately I had to have a c-section; however, since German’s consider this a type of major abdominal surgery, they like to keep you in the hospital.  I left the hospital with my son 9 days after he was born – drains, bandages, stitches – everything had been removed.  Again – they like to do this to make sure you are OK and that there aren’t any complications.

I don’t know about you – but I personally felt that I as an individual mattered and was cared for. 

As for the mammograms, I had my first one shortly after my 38th birthday and a second shortly thereafter because of “issues” – and it was emotionally very stressful and I worried a lot.  Luckily the second one came back fine.  I believe they should not change the age for mammograms but maybe have them  a bit less frequently before age 50 – say every two years or three years until age 50.

  1. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/health/17cancer.html [↩]