A Conflict of Conscience
Today an “Action Alert” came to my inbox from the American Cancer Society. The American Cancer Society is my premier charity organization and (typically) without fail receives every bit of support I can give. But then this email was sent to my mailbox and I was torn:
The U.S. Senate is about to eliminate guaranteed insurance coverage for mammograms and other vital cancer screenings.
As an active American Cancer Society Relay For Life volunteer, we’re asking you to help stop them. Imagine you or a loved one getting your mammogram or other cancer screening and then being told the insurance company refuses to cover it.
If passed, insurance companies would no longer have to cover mammograms and other life-saving cancer screenings. Pap smears, colonoscopies, prostate cancer screenings, clinical trials, and off-label drug use are all at risk of no longer being covered by insurance companies! Email your U.S. Senators right now. Tell them to oppose S.1955.
So why the confusion? Mammograms and cancer screenings are absolutely critical prevention methods, right? Well, definitely. Each time a mammogram, pap smear, colonoscopy, or prostate screening catches cancer early, it is almost certainly a saved life.
But “mandated coverage” is one of the government interventions to the medical care system that is screwing things up so much. Mandated coverages are exactly why insurance is so damned expensive that fewer and fewer Americans can afford it (especially without the help of their employers, which is a rediculous pairing to start with). It’s simple supply side pressure economics: having mandated coverages force costs up on all insurance companies causing an industry wide supply shift to more expensive/less coverage.
While it is certainly fantastic that everyone that has insurance currently has cancer screening included in that coverage, it’s not fantastic that millions of Americans have no insurance at all as a result. I find the trade off very difficult to support. While those who face cancer with insurance might be tested and hopefully saved, those with no insurance what-so-ever will most certainly find out too late and perish. I can’t support an action that will have the government forcing more people into the latter category. Just because it’s easier to see those that are saved, doesn’t make those that are lost any less important. At least not to me.
I think I’ll just let this particular “Action Alert” slide by.