In a segment today on new guidelines on how often women should get Pap smears, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer suggested, multiple times, that the guidelines — coupled with those released about breast cancer screenings — amount to government rationing.
“Some people are concerned it looks like this is the start of rationing, sanctioned, in effect, by the government. Is it?” he asked Sheila Rothman, a public health professor and health historian at Columbia University.
When she said no, Blitzer came back.
“To a lot of critics, it looks like they’re more interested in saving money, which is not necessarily a bad thing, if you can use that money for some more worthwhile uses, as opposed to saving lives,” Blitzer said.
“I don’t think that’s really the issue here,” Rothman said, saying the guidelines are based on solid data instead of the anecdotal evidence of previous guidelines. And, she said, “They’re just guidelines” that can’t affect individual decisions.”
“You say they’re just guidelines,” Blitzer said, but “some fear” that insurance companies will stop reimbursing women for mammograms and Pap smears.
“That’s hard to tell,” Rothman said.
