Cancer Screening...Don't bother!

November 2009 - Woman don’t need mammogram screenings until age 50.  Not age 40 as was previously recommended.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/health/17cancer.html

March 2012 woman don’t need annual pap tests anymore, despite previous recommendations that they were necessary.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/14/health/la-he-pap-tests-20120315

May 2012 Men don’t need to have yearly prostate screening anymore.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/new-data-on-harms-of-prostate-cancer-testing/

For two decades Cancer deaths have been going down because of early detection and prevention efforts. 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/medical/health/medical/cancer/story/2012-01-05/Cancer-death-rates-continue-to-drop/52387824/1

So why now is there a concerted effort to undo all the progress?  Because screening people costs insurance companies lots of money.  If you don’t screen it doesn’t cost insurance companies anything.  That is much better…for them.  If you don’t detect the cancer then insurance companies don’t have to pay to treat the cancer.  More savings.  Once you figure out you have cancer it is probably real late and you will simply die.  Again not a problem for insurance companies.  Dead people are very cheap to treat.

To recap – Don’t screen and save money.  Don’t treat the disease (you don’t know about) and save money.  Once you are so sick you just die…..even more savings.  It is a win, win, win for the big insurance companies. 

The government “panels” are all too happy to help out with this new business plan.  If the government doesn’t recommend screening you can be sure the insurance companies aren’t going to pay for it.  If the insurance companies contribute enough campaign contributions to their favorite political party (both of them) they are sure to get exactly what they want. 

God bless Capitalism.