GOP Plays Cancer Politics To Slam Reform “Rationing”

Republicans have stepped up attacks against President Obama’s push for health care reform with the release of new federal guidelines for breast cancer screening that call for fewer preemptive tests for most women. What’s the connection? GOP lawmakers and conservative activists say the new voluntary guidelines are an example of the type of “rationing” Americans would see under “government-run health care” if the current health legislation in Congress is approved and signed by the president.

Republicans seized on the controversial report this week and have ridden a wave of media attention that has followed, using the cancer story to try for a political edge against the White House and Democrats with Senate reform legislation facing a key Saturday night vote to carry on debate.

Conservatives are trying to connect dots regarding the two independent reports prepared by doctors and medical professionals  and tie them to their consistent talking points railing against”rationing” being a key component of the president’s health care agenda and the threat of “bureaucrats” superseding doctors in controlling Americans health care.

GOP Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, n outspoken critic of health care reform, warned the public that “this is how rationing begins.”

“This is how rationing begins,” Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said Tuesday.

“This is the little toe in the edge of the water. And this is where we start getting a bureaucrat between you and your physician. As we have gone through this health care debate over the past several months, this is what we have warned about.”

Republicans continued their attacks as the story grew and forced Democrats and the White House to push back against the idea that the two reports set federal health care policy or had anything to do with the legislation working its way through Congress.

“This is how rationing starts,” declared Jon Kyl of Arizona, the party’s second-in-command in the Senate, during a news conference. “This is what we’re going to expect in the future.”

Said Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska: “Those recommendations will be used by the insurance companies as they make a determination as to what they’re going to cover.”

Democrats said the recommendations had nothing to do with the big health care bill. And besides, they said, the recommendations, especially one that women start mammograms at 50 rather than 40, were deeply flawed.

“It’s entirely possible that this panel got it wrong, and I think they did,” said Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the vote-counting Democratic whip. Fears that the government is going to run health care have not come up during negotiations for Saturday’s crucial procedural vote, Durbin added.

And Sarah Palin, purveyor of the accusation that Democrats and the president will set up”death panels” to control health care costs, weighed in on the controversy with a Facebook post taking aim at what she says is “rationed care.”

We need answers: Is early screening not saving lives? Why do doctors’ groups disagree? Did costs play any role in these decisions to change the recommendations on breast and cervical cancer screenings? We need assurances that everything we’ve heard this week about fewer tests for women’s cancers is a result of patient-focused research and providing the best care for the right reasons, and not because of bureaucratic pressure to control costs.

Obviously the first thought that comes to mind when hearing of these new recommendations from bureaucratic panels is “rationed care.” It’s fair – and healthy – to ask if that’s what Washington has in mind with a government-controlled takeover of a health care system.

While Republican critics whipped up anger over the two studies being proof that government “bureaucrats” will suddenly be allowed to meddle in decisions over patient care, an important fact about the reports were overlooked. They were both released by groups of doctors and medical professionals, and one was put out by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists on its own, without any connection to a federal study.

On Monday, a government-appointed but independent panel of doctors and scientists said women generally should begin routine mammograms in their 50s, rather than their 40s.

Then on Friday, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said that most women in their 20s can have a Pap test every two years — instead of annually — to catch slow-growing cervical cancer.

Neither the task force, which provides advice to government officials who may or may not act on it, nor the ACOG set federal policy. The ACOG’s recommendations are aimed at its own members.

The ACOG describes itself on its website as “the nation’s leading group of professionals providing health care for women.”

Republicans may be concerned about “rationed care” and government “bureaucrats” taking over patient/doctor care decisions, but this is a case where they are playing the role of government taking issue with and trying to influence decisions made by doctors and medical professionals.

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