Kindly sign a petition to stop "drive-through mastectomies"

As you know, a mastectomy is when a woman's breast is removed in order to remove cancerous breast cells/tissue. If you know anyone who has had a mastectomy, you may know that there is a lot of discomfort and pain afterwards. Insurance companies are trying to make mastectomies an outpatient procedure. Let's give women the chance to recover properly in the hospital for 2 days after surgery.

There's a bill called the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act which will require insurance companies to cover a minimum 48-hour hospital stay for patients undergoing a mastectomy. It's about eliminating the 'drive-through mastectomy' where women are forced to go home just a few hours after surgery, against the wishes of their doctor, still groggy from anesthesia and sometimes with drainage tubes still attached.

Lifetime Television has put this bill on their web page with a petition drive to show your support. Last year over half the House signed on and the Bill has been reintroduced, but of course the "compassionate Republicans" are fighting it.

Could you take a moment to sign the petition by clicking on the web site below? You need not give more than your name and zip code number.

http://www.lifetimetv.com/breastcancer/petition/signpetition.php

drive up medical costs. For those not familiar with the term, mandates are bills passed by legislative bodies passing laws that either require insurance companies to pay for certain conditions or mandate that certain treatments (like a hospital stay) be covered. Generally they are passed by states.

If you look at the mandates passed, most of them are for conditions unique to or more common among women and children. Rarely does an insurance company have to be forced to cover a condition more common in men (just look at how they pay for Viagra, but not birth control).

I'm disgusted, but not surprised that the "best health care system in the world" :sarcasm: has now decided mastectomies can be handled like a tooth extraction.

Health care shouldn't be determined by insurance companies.