Rep. Debbie Schultz: Republicans "Politicizing Breast Cancer"!

[democracy1st]

Run time: 10:02 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxTLscSF2Yc   Posted on YouTube: November 22, 2009 By YouTube Member: BangTheNews Views on YouTube: 3437   Posted on DU: November 22, 2009 By DU Member: democracy1st Views on DU: 813

 
A roundtable discussion on "This Week" with Senators Ben Nelson and Tom Coburn, and Reps. Marsha Blackburn and Debbie Wasserman Schultz following the vote to start debate on the Senate floor on health care reform. In this clip, Coburn and Schultz square off on health reform, then the group discusses the new mammogram guidelines. Breast cancer survivor Schultz says to Blackburn: "The Republicans, for the first time, have politicized breast cancer."

Also, at the eight-minute mark, Coburn denied an accusation by Doug Hampton, husband of the Sen. John Ensign's onetime lover, that Coburn negotiated a pay-off for Hampton.

[Bitwit1234]

1. Wonder what they would do

if insurance companies did away with prostrate exams. Not that they should. But what if they just mentioned that and denying approval for ED pills.

[floridablue]

9. Medicare does not pay for my PSA test

I have to sign an obligation to pay $100 before they run it for my doctor.

[tomm2thumbs]

2. the GOP is practicing their page, paragraph, lines in front a mirror

Maybe they should simply stick to telling it to the mirror because their voices are giving away their fears of this passing, even as they try to criticize it.

Fear is easy to smell Blackburn. You reek of it.

[scribble]

3. Where was the fight?

Hey, look. Let's call this vid for what it really shows.

Stephanopolis is an ass.

Coburn is an ass.

That texas female is pretty much for sale.

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is cute as a button and articulate as the dickens, but the two Republicans rudely interrupted her at will, and her answers were weak. When she finally made some strong statements late in the vid; her audience would have been fast asleep.

Yes, I'm being hard. I don't care.

Congressional Democrats have to enter in to the debate. They have to change their tactics when their opponents are arrogant, rude Southern Republican fuckheads.

Wasserman-Schultz is a prime example of the mistake that all Congressional Democrats (save Grayson) make, time after time. As progressives, you and I get her vague front-office pushback in answer to our questions; the GOP gets her assiduously polite sing-song voice in answer to their rudeness and outright lying: Because W-S and her collegues don't push back; American women get more breast cancer as a result.

La Deborah needs to fight better than this.

sc

[Enthusiast]

7. Surely you don't expect

a fair representation of health care reform on ABC. Every time she tried to speak they shouted her down and only once did Stephanopolis rein them in and then only for a second. How is this any different than Fox News?

It sure is a good thing Democrats won the elections.

It appears to me controlling the media is far more effective than winning elections.

[JDPriestly]

4. Coburn is actually equivocating about the Hampton accusation.

Coburn admits to "passing along" Hampton's demand which amounted to an offer of settlement of Hampton's claim, but denies that there was a "negotiation" and asserts that he was therefore not an intermediary. (I'm paraphrasing to eliminate the equivocation.)

But, obviously, Coburn, by presenting Hampton's offer to Ensign, acted as an intermediary and obviously, no matter what Ensign responded, there was at least an attempt on Hampton's part at negotiation.

I'm using the word "obviously" because my interpretation of Coburn's statements are based on Coburn's admission that he talked to Hampton about Hampton's demand or offer. Coburn's voice is fearful, broken. He is totally embarrassed by the allegation by Stephanopolous and rightfully so.

Coburn -- caught red-handed in, well, he really didn't lie. He just cleverly avoided lying by equivocating.

Sounds like the breast cancer portion of the bill will be changed.

Unfortunately, in spite of years and years in which to get their act together, the health insurance companies have failed to provide Americans with the health care we need. The government is only stepping in because of the failure of the private sector. That's what Republicans can't deal with.

But then, all Americans are disappointed in the failure of American businesses, the private sector, to function as it should. Short-term profits are the be-all and end-all in American business today. Making excellent products and providing excellent service for the customer's money no longer matter to the graduates of business schools who now run the private sector.

Very sad. The American dream of private enterprise is being destroyed, not by ordinary Americans, not by Bolsheviks or over-zealous trade unionists, but by big business itself.

I think that the health care bill as written will lead to higher premiums. But then, would not passing the health care bill lead to lower premiums? Of course not. And the Republicans know that very well.

[swilton]

5. I think Schultz is being disingenuous about the benefits of this bill

[Berry Cool]

6. I don't think her view of breast cancer right now is terribly realistic.

She is extrapolating from her own situation to apply to everyone else's. Because she was diagnosed fairly young, and her cancer was caught early and was treatable, she wants to spread a message far and wide that young women need to get screened like crazy for breast cancer--as if it were more a young woman's disease than an older woman's disease. I'm afraid she's going to frighten a lot of young women who are already over-messaged to death about breast cancer into thinking that every little lump they find is cancerous.

Do young women get breast cancer? Yeah. For that reason they should not allow their doctors to pooh-pooh it when they have a real concern about something they find. But should young women be getting annual mammograms? No, at least not from what the experts say. If women started getting annual mammograms at, say, 21, we'd probably see a whole lot more of them with breast cancer by 45 from all the radiation exposure. Breast cancer is still primarily an older woman's disease, and it doesn't make much more sense statistically to screen younger women annually for it than it would to make men get annual mammograms at ANY age, even though they can get breast cancer too.

I think she's at a stage right now where she looks at any recommendation for fewer mammogram screenings as something that's going to cost millions of women their lives. I'm not convinced she's right, and neither are people like these at Breast Cancer Action:

http://bcaction.org/index.php?page=does-mammography-scr...

I don't even know why, in this clip, mammography is being classified as "preventive." There's not a mammogram in this world capable of PREVENTING cancer. All mammograms do is detect what's already there and possibly provide more time and treatment options. That's all they CAN do. They don't prevent cancer. We need to get this notion out of our head that "early detection = preventing cancer" or "early detection = curing cancer."

[PinkyisBlue]

8. Mammograms

I don't think anyone is advocating having 21 year old girls getting annual mammograms. The current recommendation is for women to begin getting mammograms at age 40, and these new recommendations are for women to wait until age 50 before getting a mammogram. I believe this is politicizing breast cancer. If these recommendations are accepted, insurance companies may refuse to pay for a mammogram until a woman is age 50; this will result in a lot of missed cancers and, likely, more deaths.

By the way, my own sister was diagnosed at age 39 with breast cancer and died of the disease just after her 49th birthday. It's not just an older woman's disease. More and more younger women are diagnosed with this terrible cancer.

[susanwy]

10. Rep Schultz is rightly concerned about the recommendations

Because they were not presented with patient advocacy in mind.

Are we possibly causing more harm than good by saying yearly mammograms for ALL women over 40 are necessary? Maybe, obviously this panel thinks the prevailing evidence shows this to be the case. But the guidelines also stated that women need to take in their family history, risk factors and environment before deciding how often to screen for cancer. However, these guidelines will now give insurance companies an incentive to close the door on ANY woman between the ages of 40 and 50 being covered for this basic screening. And trust me, anything to boost profits and provide less care will be jumped on by the rat bastards (especially if it is backed by this panel's recommendations). Thus, women who can afford a mammography will get them, women who can't won't. This does not exactly mean progress in health care reform. Rather than talking about the findings or discuss how to make sure insurance companies can't deny care, the repukes immediately define it as "rationing" and try to scare the crap out of us.

I certainly hope that congress, when they reconcile the bills, are able to provide language that will protect a woman's right to make a choice of care with their doctor concerning when to get breast cancer screening.

BTW - breast cancer does occur in younger women and the statistics are growing. Furthermore, the cancers they find in younger women tend to be more virilent and deadly. My SIL is dying right now of breast cancer, at age 39.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[floridablue]

11. I was of the understanding that she

underwent radical surgery to the whole repoductive system to assure no future problems even if it meant no more children.