WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 (UPI) -- A controversial recommendation on breast cancer testing by a U.S. medical panel shows why healthcare reform is flawed, a Republican Party spokeswoman says.
California U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina, speaking Saturday during the GOP's weekly radio address, noted she is a breast cancer survivor and said if she had followed a recommendation made last month by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force -- a 16-member panel of doctors and nurses assembled by Department of Health and Human Services -- "I'm not sure I'd be alive today."
The group recommended women under 50 forgo routine breast cancer tests and instead get mammograms individually in consultation with their doctors.
"This task force was explicitly asked to focus on costs, not just prevention," Fiorina said. "As it turned out, costs were a significant factor in this recommendation. Will a bureaucrat determine that my life isn't worth saving?"
Fiorina said the outcry over the panel's recommendations begs the question of "whether bodies like this would set policy under the $2.5 trillion, 2,074-page plan that's now making its way through Congress? ... Do we really want government bureaucrats rather than doctors dictating how we prevent and treat something like breast cancer?"
