Placebo

Pay for the blue pill that works, not the red one that
doesn’t. That’s the president’s simple prescription for improving American
health care, one that relies on government panels and committees to set
guidelines for doctors and patients alike.

At least, that’s the
theory.

The theory met messy reality last week when the U.S. Preventive
Services Task Force recommended that women in their 40s shouldn’t get
mammograms. But the secretary of health and human services — who, incidentally,
oversees this panel — thinks women probably should. And the American Cancer
Society believes that they definitely should; major private insurance companies,

for the record, will continue to fund the tests.