As are many claims about hc reform being offered by republicans: socialism, govt control of intimate decisions, etc. Sorry you fell for it, Joan.

The central issue about the "new" recommendations (which have been floating around for decades) is that women should be informed and advised about the risks as well as the benefits of regular mammo screenings. In this ongoing saga, however, scientific information about the risks has been subsumed by politics and anecdotes by various public speakers, including some cancer survivors.

Some of the risks need to be understood by women so that they can make better-informed decisions. For example, the risks of over-treatment for anomalies that may be found by mammography but may or may not become life-threatening cancers. More research needs to be done to sort out the passive vs. aggressive tumors, but in the meantime aggressive treatments (including mastectomies, chemo, radiation, etc.) are applied to all comers. Just in case.

The risks of treatment need to be balanced against the probabilities of "cures." Nobody likes to hear that there are uncertainties involved. But the more the public is well-informed as opposed to being distracted by the political games, the better, I think.

I do like a good mystery, but my knowledge of medicine is too decrepit to tell whether the team is on the right track.

Nevertheless, I am someone who can relate to another who needs a cane to walk and who is often grumpy because of the inadequacy of pain meds to solve the problem. But still he gets up and into work and does his best to help his patients to overcome whatever it is that is causing their suffering. Maybe he is motivated by the logic of the problem, a puzzle to be solved, or maybe he really does connect to underlying human issues that others on his staff are too polite to confront.

Of course the scenario is unrealistic when compared to what actually happens in hospitals all over the country. Itsa fantasy to believe in such dedication on the part of medical staff. But isn't that what fantasies are for?

This is an interesting article as far as it goes, but still the big elephant in the room is the cost of the tax cuts that Bush and the other deficit hawks pushed thu in 2001. And now nobody seems to be talking about reinstating more taxes on the wealthy (who have disproportionatly profitted in the meantime). Well, I suppose those cuts will sunset sometime soon, but really, its not simply a choice between health care and the military. False dichotomy. Unless you buy into the "starve the beast" mentality that those dubious anarchists like Grover Norquist and Newt Gingrich are fond of promoting.

Somehow Harry Reid, that exemplar of Democratic spinelessness, has become the current point-man for health insurance reform. So it is appropriate to direct your concerns at him.

But think about it. How did he get this job delegated to him? Where are all those brainiacs that the WH supposedly had at their command? I do hope that they are helping Harry get thru this ordeal, but ultimately it is Obama (who campaigned better than he leads) who has delegated the task (and the fault lines) to Harry.

Wishing Harry well, but not holding my breath.

While everyone (everyone pro-choice, that is) is having a hissy fit over the Stupak fiasco, and I don't mean that in a derogatory sense because sometimes hissy fits can be effective in their time and place.

But another aspect of the House bill, apparently, that nobody seems to mind, is that it does not include under basic covered medical services the usual gyn exams that most women rely on to check out for STDs, birth control, uturine or ovarian abnormalities and so forth. Pap smears and mammograms (lab tests) are covered but not the usual medical appointment that collects them??? It's not just abortion services that have been thrown under the bus, but a whole range of medical services that women need to keep their bodies healthy and to prevent catastrophic events (such as cancer, infertility, infections) from getting a foothold.

You are so right on!

There aren't enough doctors, nurses, pa's and so forth, mostly thanks to the AMA's grip on medical education (restricting access to training slots), all the better to restrict supply, my dear, in hopes of increasing profits to the business end of medical supply.

Does anyone in a policy position here understand how much we rely on immigrants on H1 visas to fill out the gaps in our health care personnel? All (or at least most) very nice people and very well trained (in my experience), but when we have a situation where US trained medical professionals who graduate with KKs of student loans to pay off vs. immigrant professionals who have been trained at their nation's public expense, well, there is an imbalance there. I'm just glad that there is a way to fill in the gaps because if left to the AMA policies entirely, we as a country would be in even worse shape than we are at present.