More awesome policy-making from the Bush administration:
The federal government has a national breast and cervical cancer early detection program, run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It provides screening and other important services to low-income women who do not have health insurance, or are underinsured.
There is agreement across the board that the program is a success. It saves lives and it saves money. Its biggest problem is that it doesn't reach enough women. At the moment there is only enough funding to screen one in five eligible women.
A sensible policy position for the Bush administration would be to expand funding for the program so that it reached everyone who was eligible. It terms of overall federal spending, the result would be a net decrease. Preventing cancer, or treating it early, is a lot less expensive than treating advanced cancer.
So what did this president do? He proposed a cut in the program of $1.4 million (a minuscule amount when you're talking about the national budget), which would mean that 4,000 fewer women would have access to early detection.
This makes no sense. In human terms, it is cruel. From a budget standpoint, it's self-defeating.
Advanced cancers are expensive to treat. Fighting them costs exponentially more than removing nascent tumors. This cut will prove a money-loser after it misses its first lump. And we're replicating the mistake across the board:
What's really amazing," said Mr. Smith, "is that the president cut every cancer program. He cut the colorectal cancer program. He cut research at the National Cancer Institute. He cut literally every one of our cancer-specific programs. It's incomprehensible."
It really is. Compassionate conservatism in action. Not only cruel, but stupid, too.
Update: Reader EM e-mails:
Ezra--as someone who does a fair amount of policy-related research, I really like your work. In your post about cutting funding for the NBCCEDP, though, you're off on one point--that the unfortunate cutting of funds will lead to a net increase in costs. Although you're absolutely right that advanced cancer is expensive, especially compared to the costs of screening or treatment for early lesions, the net costs of screening for cancers are almost always higher than the net costs of doing nothing, because cancers are relatively rare. This is especially true for cervical cancer, where the majority of the abnormalities detected are unlikely to ever become a cancer.
So maybe just cruel?
