Today's Opinions: Broken promises, Boehner's Plan B and implementing reform

No More Mammograms For Me The Washington Post
My sister's cancer ... sent me into the medical literature with an insatiable hunger for information. It's this search for answers and 20 years of experience caring for women — many of whom bore physical or emotional scars acquired in the aftermath of suspicious or inconclusive mammograms — that led me to decide that I could no longer endorse the tests as routine screening measures for me or any other woman (Veneta Masson, 10/11).

Pawlenty Fails To Provide Health Rx (Minneapolis-St.Paul, Minn.) Star Tribune
Now that the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land, it just makes sense for the state's providers and insurers to guide federal efforts to make the bill's key provisions a reality (10/11).

Broken Promises New York Post
During the debate over health-care reform, President Obama told us nearly every day that if you had health insurance now and were satisfied with it, you'd be able to keep it. ... In fact, it's becoming harder to find anyone who can keep their current insurance (Michael Tanner, 10/11).

Boehner's 'Plan B' For ObamaCare The Wall Street Journal
Even if Republicans could not get the president to sign anything into law, by forcing votes and vetoes Republicans would drive home an important point: If the American people really want repeal, they will need to vote for a Republican president in 2012 (William McGurn, 10/12).

Public Employee Benefits Should Be Cut Des Moines Register
Public workers typically have it better than those in the private sector — from sick leave to job security to retirement pensions to automatic pay increases most years (10/12).

How To Brand A Disease — And Sell A Cure CNN
Just as Bernays sold pianos by selling the music room, pharmaceutical marketers now sell drugs by selling the diseases that they treat. The buzzword is "disease branding" (Dr. Carl Elliott, 10/11).

Intentional Infection Of Vulnerable Populations In 1946-1948 Journal of the American Medical Association
While effective protections against unethical research continue to evolve across the world, the past exploitations of vulnerable populations, including the subjects of the study in Guatemala in the 1940s, are regrettable and deeply saddening. For them, the basic ethical principle of respect for persons was flagrantly violated (Dr. Thomas Frieden and Dr. Francis Collins, 10/11).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.