Obamacare kills women a second way in 2 days

WASHINGTON — First mammograms. Now — in an apparent coincidence — Pap smears.

New guidelines by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists say most women in their 20s can have a Pap smear every two years instead of annually to catch slow-growing cervical cancer.

The change comes amid a separate debate over when regular mammograms to detect breast cancer should begin, in the 40s or the 50s. The timing of the Pap guidelines is coincidence, said ACOG, which began reviewing its recommendations in late 2007 and published the update Friday in the journal Obstetrics&Gynecology.

While the two sets of recommendations are unrelated, they come at a time of intense debate over health-care reform. Mammograms in particular have drawn broad attention in Congress, reflecting a more than decade-long debate in the cancer community about how best to perform mammograms.

Republicans sought to connect the mammogram recommendations to the health-care overhaul, contending that such findings are the way that medical rationing starts.