Could President Obama’s healthcare reform be dangerous for women?

According to Nichole Kurokawa, senior policy analyst for the Independent Women’s Forum, Obama’s healthcare reform could lead to an increased risk of death for women with breast cancer. That conclusion is based on studies comparing Britain’s government-run healthcare and the current U.S. healthcare system. The studies were conducted by the Lewin Group and Lancet Oncology.
 
Kurokawa notes that, according to The Lancet medical journal, survival rates of breast cancer among women in the U.S. are about 84 percent — as compared to a 69-percent survival rate in England.
 
“…[R]ight now there are 2.5-million breast cancer survivors in the United States,” she points out. “That means that…if we had survival rates at what Britain had, there would be about 300,000 American women who would have died over the past decade.”
 
Kurokawa believes the survival rate is much lower in Britain due to the rationing of healthcare and the long waits for examinations, which discourage early detection of the cancer.
 
The Independent Women’s Forum plans to launch an ad campaign highlighting the findings. The ads will feature Tracy Walsh — a breast cancer survivor — who fears that under Obama’s healthcare plan she would not have been able to survive. The ads, currently available on YouTube, will run for one week on major cable and television networks.