Thousands of women face cuts to cancer screening

[The Straight Story]

Thousands of women face cuts to cancer screening

The local medical community is expressing grave concerns about state cuts that will deny regular breast cancer screening to thousands of area women.

"Every Woman Counts," a program that pays the cost of mammograms for uninsured women not covered by Medi-Cal -- or those who have insurance that doesn't cover the cost of screenings -- will on Jan. 1 "temporarily cease new breast cancer screening enrollments" and stop covering mammograms for women age 40-49, according to the California Department of Public Health.

The cuts in services were made as a result of "unprecedented fiscal challenges," state health officer Dr. Mark Horton said in a statement.

Increasing demand for breast cancer screening services and declining state tobacco tax revenues have forced the cuts, Horton said. While the state has provided short-term funding increases for the program over the past few years, the increases have not been enough to keep pace with the growing demand for and cost of providing breast cancer screening services to women in the program.

http://www.bakersfield.com/news/local/x211509286/Thousands-of-women-face-cuts-to-cancer-screening

[safeinOhio]

1. Please don't forget the men

The American Cancer Society estimates that about 2,000 new cases of invasive breast cancer are diagnosed in men each year and approximately 450 men die from breast cancer annually. Male breast cancers account for approximately 1% of all breast cancer cases.
A less sexest headline might read, Thousands may face cuts to cancer screening.

[mahina]

2. We just finished studying the data for this decision. It's pretty interesting... for the 39-49 group

you need to treat 1900 women to save one life. Problem is that there's also an increased risk of loss of life, though slim, from the radiation in the mammograms. Only for women who are already exposed elsewhere in their lives, but still.

When you get to age 50, the NNT (yes I am showing off...number needed to treat) is 1200 women. That's the data that supported the policy change. It's not like mammograms are free, comfortable, or reliable...the false positives are pretty staggering too.

I'm sure I'll get slammed but just had to share a little data. There's no way to put a dollar value on the lives of our Moms and sisters, but decisions are made this way.

[Rhiannon12866]

3. Thanks for sharing this.

I had my first mammogram in three years last month. I lost my health insurance in 2007. But my doctor thought that it was about time that I had one (preventative medicine) and he enrolled me in a free program at the local hospital which covers both mammograms and pap tests. I live in a fairly small town, so there are programs out there, if concerned doctors and patients know where to look for them. :-)

[niyad]

4. "every woman counts"??? too bad that isn't true for any part of our government

or agencies.