Mark Kirk Wrongly Claims That Health Reform Could Make It “Law” For Gov To Deny Mammograms
A new incarnation for the death panels?
GOP Rep Mark Kirk, who’s running for Senate and facing a primary challenge from the right, is now claiming that if health care reform passes, it “could become law” for the government to deny coverage for mammograms.
Kirk’s Senate campaign is out with a new email that is presented as a questionnaire, asking: “Could the Government Deny Mammogram Coverage?” It continues:
This month, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended eliminating mammograms for women ages 40-49. The panel concluded that while thousands of women’s lives would be saved by continuing the test, “the net benefit is small” for the population as a whole.
Currently, this is only an advisory recommendation. But under the health care bill moving through the Senate, this recommendation could become law.
TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK: Should women between the ages of 40 and 49 be denied access to life-saving mammograms?
But here’s the thing: As The Times put it recently, there is “virtually no chance that any insurers, either public or private, will deny coverage to anyone based on these recommendations.” They are purely meant as guidance for women and doctors.
Kirk’s email doesn’t clarify whether an actual government panel would make the decision to deny women life-saving mammograms. Nor does it say whether the decision would be based on the patient’s productivity in society, as Sarah Palin’s death panels were structured (by her, at least) to do.
But the death panel overtones of this latest are unmistakable. Palin has given birth to an entire new genre!
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“Palin has given birth to an entire new genre!”
An entire new genre of liars. Fear mongering has long been the preferred method of persuasion in the Repubs strategy, but lately they have sunk to a new low. It’s weird that the HCR debate has brought out the worst in so many of them.
This is such bs and women are actually falling for it. They have argued for 25 years over when to start annual mammograms and if they are really necessary for women in their 30s and 40s.
This has never been settled. There is a risk involved in the mammogram procedure so they keep trying to figure out how much exposure is necessary and they never have.
“It’s weird that the HCR debate has brought out the worst in so many of them.”
There’s an optimistic statement if I ever saw one. Don’t imagine they’ve hit bottom yet – just wait for Climate Control legislation.
“Just wait for Climate Control legislation.”
And I’m exhausted right now…
How many decades has it been since a Republican entered a debate with anything other than the fear card? To so cynically engage in the basest of fear mongering from the start is to concede that you have no merits on which to argue your case.
I’ll believe Republicans when they quit trotting out inane memes such as “killing grandma,” “government rationed healthcare,’ and now “government denying mammograms” merely to frighten people. The Republicans have offered nothing of substance, only fear.
Collectively the GOP has but a single arrow in their quiver and they keep firing it over and over and over….
“And I’m exhausted right now…”
Well Greggy – LOL – we haven’t even had a story that PO is dead no it’s not yes it is lately. You should be rested up.
What’s interesting about Kirk is that, not so very long ago, he was a fairly reasonable, moderate Republican.
In recent weeks, though, he’s moved so far right so rapidly, it’s a wonder he doesn’t have whiplash!
That’s today’s GOP for you!
“In recent weeks, though, he’s moved so far right so rapidly, it’s a wonder he doesn’t have whiplash!
That’s today’s GOP for you!”
Word up! I was going to vote in the Repug primary here for Fluffy Hutchison since she used to be reasonable. She even was pro-choice back in the day. Now she has the worst mofoing TV ad about HCR I’ve seen yet. She sits there and tells you it’s government takeover and she ain’t having it any more than Rick Perry is. She’s going to be talking secession, too, before it’s all said and done.
Tena, I agree with you on the climate bill, but it just seems as though they would be a little more subtle regarding the health of so many Americans and try to paint themselves as a little more sympathetic. They just can’t help themselves I guess.
You know I really hate to post anything about our Sarah, but this really cracked me up. Apparently she’s been doing most of her book tour travels by private jet, not the bus she’s led everyone to believe she is traveling on. What a hypocrite.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/30/palin-plane-tour-using-pr_n_374084.html
Wildly OT, but very funny and indicative of how little fact-checking–or facts–goes into the modern Republican speechifying/writing:
Geoffrey Dunn dug up an amusing error in Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue. The epigraph for Chapter Three, “Drill, Baby, Drill,” is a quote that Palin attributes to legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden:
Our land is everything to us… I will tell you one of the things we remember on our land. We remember our grandfathers paid for it—with their lives.
Dunn explains what the problem is:
[T]he quote wasn’t by John Wooden. It was written by a Native American activist named John Wooden Legs in an essay entitled “Back on the War Ponies,” which appeared in a left-wing anthology, We Are the People: Voices from the Other Side of American History, edited by Nathaniel May, Clint Willis, and James W. Loewen.
The real quote:
Our land is everything to us. It is the only place in the world where Cheyennes talk the Cheyenne language to each other. It is the only place where Cheyennes remember the same things together. I will tell you one of the things we remember on our land. We remember our grandfathers paid for it—with their life. My people and the Sioux defeated General Custer at the Little Big Horn.
H/T to Mother Jones’ Nick Baumann
“Apparently she’s been doing most of her book tour travels by private jet, not the bus she’s led everyone to believe she is traveling on. What a hypocrite.”
Yeah I read that the other day when she stiffed all those people who had waited to get her autograph for hours – she told them to keep the faith, then she climbed into her private jet and left.
I bet she had on that $2500 Valentino jacket she gave back, too.
Kelley – that is good. Wow.
I am fond though of Glenn Beck saying about Sarah and he sharing a ticket: she’d be yapping and I’d be like: Why am I hearing your voice? I’m not in the kitchen.
roflmao!
Wonder if Mark Kirk has ever thought about the menfolk…oh my!
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/59280.php
excerpt:
“Mammography is being performed with increasing frequency in men with breast symptoms, but we found that breast cancer in men can be felt as a firm, discrete mass on a physical exam, or seen as changes in the skin or nipple,” says the study’s lead author, Stephanie Hines, M.D., of Mayo’s Multidisciplinary Breast Clinic and Breast Cancer Program in Jacksonville, Fla. Male breast cancer is exceedingly rare — fewer than 2,000 men in the United States are diagnosed with the condition annually, she says.”
just wait for Climate Control legislation
And then there’s immigration reform………..
The GOP is in big trouble. It is in desperate need of an emergency Palinectomy. But, as a pre-existing condition, this procedure is not eligible for coverage until 2013. Besides, lacking federal guidelines for periodic Palinoscopies, no primary-care provider would dare cross Aetna&Cigna by giving the referral the GOP needs to consult a specialist. Also.
I’m delighted with all the lies and propagandizing. The crazies are the only ones who can save us from these horrible bills. There’s no health, no care, and certainly no reform in either of them. Kill the bill. Kill it dead, plow it under, and start over with single-payer. Just kill it now. I’m so sick of this…
sarah palin and the rest of the government cant not pass such a bill as if they do their will be along line of lawsuits waiting at the other end of that bill women aged 40 to 49 are at higher risk of breast cancer then those at 20 or 39. Women are alway the traget of political attack when it comes to passing a bill, that would be like saying that they are passing a bill that wont allow men to get prostate cancer test done, or an infant doesnt have the right to an incurbator, to stay alive. come on they talk out their butt. fight nice or get out of the hot seat and let someone else run okay.
Did you not read the qualifiers? “Currently, this is only an advisory recommendation. But … could become law.”
I know Democrats think they’re the only ones allowed to raise red flags and play to fears — usually illegitimate — but in this case, it’s not stated full-out. Obama told a woman that her grandmother was just too old to get a pacemaker and might be better off just taking a pain pill — which is absurd, since there’s no real pain associated with that heart issue. The only way Obama can cut costs is to cut care for the ill. We don’t spend money on the healthy. The whole point is doctors, not government bureaucrats, should make these decisions. As for all the sneering at Palin, right now there are government guidelines for who gets a Swine Flu vaccine — and if you’re deemed too old, you just don’t get one. Why? Because there’s a limited supply on hand, and someone decided the young are more important than the old.
This is a debate worth having. Remember the last eight years: Dissent itself is patriotic. And remember the 60s: Question authority.
“Currently, this is only an advisory recommendation” that was appointed by Republican President BUSH.
While I understand that right wingers want to pretend that Republican President’s failures are always someone else’s fault, the rest of US really would like to see some accountability, though many of US would be happy with some acknowledgment off reality by right wingers.
“The health and human services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, distancing herself from the group’s recommendations, told CNN on Wednesday, “This panel was appointed by the prior administration, by former [Republican] President George Bush.”“
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/health/20prevent.html
wow, it is really new incarnation for the death panels. I gotta admit.