something important please read

[skye]

Breast Cancer Hospitalization Bill - Important

legislation for all women.

Please send this to everyone in your address book. If
there was ever a time when our voices and choices
should be heard, this is one of those times. If you
are receiving this it's because I think you will take
the 30 seconds to go and vote on this issue...and send
it on to others you know who will do the same.

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

 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.
PLEASE!!!! Sign the petition by clicking on the web
site below. You need not give more than your name and
zip code number.



 This takes about 2 seconds. PLEASE PASS THIS ON to your friends and family.
THANKS

[Hardware Queen]

http://www.susanlovemd.com/community/rumors/rumor5-legislation.html

Behind the Internet Rumor: Breast Cancer Hospitalization Bill - Important legislation for all women.

It is true, as it says on the Lifetime website, that in 2003, "Lifetime Television delivered more than 5 million petition signatures to Capitol Hill urging Congress to ban "drive-through" mastectomies - the practice in which women are forced out of the hospital sometimes only hours after breast cancer surgery." And it is true that legislation has been introduced, called the Breast Cancer Protection Act of 2003, that would require insurance companies to cover a 48-hour minimum stay for mastectomy patients and a 24-hour stay for a woman undergoing a lymph node dissection. To date, however, this legislation has never come to a vote. It was sent to the House employer-employee subcommittee in 2003, and has not been acted on since then.

What is not true:
1. There has never been an insurance company that required same day mastectomies. This is an urban myth that spun out of control.
2. Not all women need to stay overnight in the hospital after breast cancer surgery, and it isn't necessarily bad to go home the same day. It depends on the individual woman's situation.
3. This is not a decision that Congress should make. We really don't want Congress involved in medical decision-making. Legislators should not be deciding how long we should stay in the hospital.