You might have thought that all the sports news this
week revolved around Tiger Woods and his “transgressions.”
But of course politics is something of a sport as
well, and there was plenty of gamesmanship on display this week, from President
Obama’s decision to both send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and outline
a timeline for withdrawal by 2011; to reminding the American public that the
government is still focused on a jobs stimulus despite everything else that's
going on; to the football-like grappling in the U.S. Senate over the health
reform bill.
Senators locked horns over costs, and also women’s
health—namely, mammograms.
Free
mammograms
A couple weeks ago a government panel said women who
aren’t predisposed to breast cancer should get mammograms starting at age 50 rather than 40, setting off a firestorm.
So the Senate passed an amendment to its version of the health bill (they pass many amendments
to revise the bill that came out of committee beforevoting
on the whole bill) that would require insurance companies to cover mammograms
before age 50 and also make them—and other types of screenings and preventative
services—FREE. The amendment passed 61-39.
Fear of rationing
Exactly why they should be free and not subject to
some kind of a co-pay is not entirely clear.
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