Now whatever would give us that idea?

I wonder why anyone would think the Federal government and the medical profession were gunning for only WOMEN'S health care. After all, they're just planning to pass health care "reform" that doesn't allow coverage of abortion, they don't think breast cancer screening is necessary unless you are "at high risk" (note to the geniuses who thought up that one: for years they've been telling us that just being a woman puts you at high risk), and now they don't think cervical cancer screening is all that and a bag of chips either:

New guidelines for cervical cancer screening say women should delay their first Pap test until age 21, and be screened less often than recommended in the past.

The advice, from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, is meant to decrease unnecessary testing and potentially harmful treatment, particularly in teenagers and young women. The group’s previous guidelines had recommended yearly testing for young women, starting within three years of their first sexual intercourse, but no later than age 21.

Arriving on the heels of hotly disputed guidelines calling for less use of mammography, the new recommendations might seem like part of a larger plan to slash cancer screening for women. But the timing was coincidental, said Dr. Cheryl B. Iglesia, the chairwoman of a panel in the obstetricians’ group that developed the Pap smear guidelines. The group updates its advice regularly based on new medical information, and Dr. Iglesia said the latest recommendations had been in the works for several years, “long before the Obama health plan came into existence.”

She called the timing crazy, uncanny and “an unfortunate perfect storm,” adding, “There’s no political agenda with regard to these recommendations.”

In 1989 I had Pap test come back as class 3, which considering that the previous year's was normal, caused my doctor a fair amount of concern. Ordinarily, she would have just done another test, but because of the rapid change in results in just a year, she did a punch biopsy in addition to another Pap. It was a week before I could get these biopsies done, and yes, the anxiety was severe. After all, I was only 34 and there was the possibility of cancer. The biopsies came back normal, the second Pap came back normal, and everything was fine. She had me come back in six months for another Pap, and again in another six months to put me back on normal schedule.

Perhaps this doctor was being overly alarmed. Perhaps she could have just done the second test. Would that have caused me any less anxiety? I hardly think so. In fact, as afraid as I was before these biopsies were taken, and as anxious as I was, I think I would have been MORE so if I were just waiting for the results of another test, or worse, if I'd been told "Let's just keep an eye on it."

It's easy to talk about guidelines and statistics, but it's quite another thing when YOU are the woman staring breast cancer or cervical cancer in the face. With this sudden rash of "Ha ha, just kidding" out of the medical profession, but ONLY as it pertains to WOMEN'S health care screenings that WOMEN have been told for a generation are necessary, coming at a time when cost-cutting is the health care watchword of the hour, is more than a little bit suspicious. And if the Obama Administration really thinks that insurance companies won't look at these reports and change what they cover for women, and if they really think women won't care that it's THEIR health care, not men's, that's being sacrificed, then Sarah Palin is going to have one hell of a platform to run on against him in 2012 if she can get past her fetophilia and megalomania long enough to realize it.

Now let's see if the feminist bloggers get on this one. After all, this isn't just about old bags who don't matter anymore, it's about THEM too.