What completely obvious BUNKO...
This is about MONEY... Insurance companies trying to wrangle cost.
Once again WOMEN are at risk... This is outrageous! Afterall that has been done to get women of all socio-economic backgrounds to become aware and proactive.. I see right through this and I hope women all over America revolt with votes and letters to their congressmen. Any doctor that would avocate this new edict is on the insurance companies payroll. Where are you on this Mr. President? I'd like to hear Cheryl Crows Voice on this new "don't perform self exam no need for mamogram before 40 crap!

When a test or procedure is scheduled with prescribed regularity (eg the mammogram @ 2 year frequency) then the cost becomes a known number and is largely fixed.

How does anyone calculate that it is better to pay Cigna $X for that KNOWN test that Cigna then in turn pays out for that KNOWN test?

Is there some advantage to having all that extra handling involved?

How about Cigna getting to sit on (and earn from) that extra premium payment for the 23 months of every two years between these scheduled tests?

Whoa, there! Before you slam Big & Evil Insurance be reminded that this was a GOVERNMENT study. Want Obamacare. Get used to it.

This is just the beginning. The government is setting the precedents by which their govt run healthcare will operate.

I know, because I'm on the current govt run healthcare system, Medicare, and it does l not cover basic things like annual paps or mammograms, that regular insurance DOES cover. This is what we'll be getting.

Why wouldn't government and insurers encourage finding breast cancer at its earliest stage when it's most affordably and successfully treated? I and so many other women in our mid-40s found breast cancer thanks to a routine mammogram. Most of us still have school-aged kids still at home and are in our prime working/earning years -- lives worth saving, not health care spending "waste." With no oncologist on the panel and the vice chair a longtime research director for a major insurer/HMO, we have a right to question who chartered this panel and what their motivation is. It's time for working women who've paid into the healthcare system for years to be heard on this issue.

When it comes to public policies such as these, deaths are viewed as numbers--as rational nameless, faceless data and plot points in cost/benefit analysis--without regard to the human stories behind those numbers. The only thing these new findings say is that dollar-wise it is not rational or beneficial to screen before 40 and screen every year because the lives saved would not justify the cost. HOWEVER, when there is even one death and it happens to be your mother, your sister, or YOU, then it's a different story.

This kind of thinking has been applied to other diseases where the number of potential lives saved were too small to justify the cost of research, mandated vaccines, etc.,

Keep pushing for your right to get screened and don't let insurance companies get away with using these findings to deny coverage.

Could it be that physicians are realizing that the present frequency of mammograms yearly is INCREASING the risk of cancer from exposure to radiation? I also question if use of oral contraception places women at risk for breast cancer; but, who will challenge that convenient cash cow?
Suggesting that women not perform breast self exams is ridiculous. Women need to take responsibility for their health and know their body better than their doctor.

I may not be here today if I hadn't gotten a breast exam in my early 40's. Thank God I was able to have them yearly from age 40. The health care system is going down the drain if this changes. Someone needs to step up and try to make the world better instead of worse.

my wife and I have medicare coverage and she is certainly covered for pap smears and mammograms, and has been, since we retired in 1998. For two years her cancer was undetected although she had mammograms in those years. When we moved out of Florida and she then had a digitized mammogram, two lumps were found that had been there for a while, we were told. Her mastectomy was also covered by Medicare.

I just want to say if this was a health issue about mostly men, our goverment would do all they could for them. However since its females we are getting shafted again. And why would anyone want to trust our govermment heck they are always changing their findings. For example, one day you can't eat eggs then the next day you can . See what i'm talking about!!!

Who paid for this study?

For the record, the insurance companies have already come out to say that they will not be changing their coverage policies. The people you need to worry about are the large employers who insure their own populations and therefore decide on the coverage without having to follow state coverage mandates.

Most insurance companies, CIGNA most definitely, are pro-preventive care. Cancer is expensive to treat, but is more cost-effective if it's caught earlier.