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Tony Ondrusek is founder and publisher of Insurance & Financial Advisor and IFAwebnews.com.

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Before this blog posting starts getting comments from those who state that I am “anti-woman” or don’t care about the devastation wrought by breast cancer, let me state emphatically: I believe that women of all age should receive regular screenings for breast cancer, and treatment upon its detection.

With that out of the way, let me state just as emphatically: I am 100% against uneducated, ill-advised or cost-”un”conscious legislators who attempt to create unnecessary and costly laws.

Take the case of Del. Donna Stifler, a seemingly well-meaning state legislator in Maryland. The Republican representative believes that Maryland needs another mandate, this time to cover breast cancer screenings. In light of the ridiculous recommendation from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force last year, when the federal agency stated that breast regular cancer screenings were unnecessary for women under the age of 50, and biannually for women over 50, a slew of folks such as Stifler have come forward with observations and proposals.

Everyone from all sides of the breast cancer issue piped in. It was generally reported that while not everyone agreed with the recommendation, the fact remained that in states such as Maryland, there was no need to make any changes to current law, as Maryland law and practice allows for regularly scheduled mammograms.

Maryland insurers — and most other insurers, for that matter — ignore the fed standard and instead follow guidelines issued by the American Cancer Society. Those guidelines state that women in their 20′s and 30′s should receive breast cancer screenings every three years, and at age 40 and above, at least once per year.

But Stifler is not satisfied with that. She wants to create a new law to deal with the possibility that the ACS might change its guidelines in future years.

According to and article on IFAwebnews.com, Stifler’s fellow legislators believe she is jumping the gun with her proposed breast cancer screening law.

And with Maryland being third in the nation with its number of mandates (Rhode Island has 70, Minnesotta has 68 and Maryland has a paltry 66),  the state can hardly afford another mandate. With 2,100 separate mandates in the U.S., which account for nearly 50% of the annual increase in premiums, adding another unnecessary one is, well, unnecessary.

If and when guidelines from the ACS change, and health insurers doing business in Maryland start to change their screening guidelines, then, and only then, should the state legislature take the appropriate action to ensure full screening is in place. (Yes, I know, it has been reported that California will no longer pay for uninsured women under 50 to have screenings, but that is a different scenario than the private health insurance market in Maryland.)

But creating a “pre-emptive” mandate in Maryland is in effect putting the cart before the horse — way before the horse — and adding another layer of bureaucracy and burden where it is really not needed.