This year we’re focused on the following state and national bills. You can help by contacting elected officials to let them know of your support.
State Healthcare Advocacy. We’re working alongside other agencies, healthcare organizations and individuals across the state to pass the Access to Diagnostic Imaging bill in #WALeg (HB 1261 and SB 5396).
This bill eliminates patient cost-sharing for diagnostic testing for breast cancer, which is performed when there is an abnormality in the screening mammogram or instead of the screening mammogram for high-risk patients. Unlike screening mammograms, these tests are not cost-free to patients, and many patients end up missing out on early diagnosis because of the high cost.
The most heart-wrenching calls we receive are from parking lots. A woman is sitting in her car, processing the news that she needs additional testing — be it a diagnostic mammogram, ultrasound, or MRI. Not only is the news scary and hard to hear, all she can think about is how she’s going to afford it.
This call comes with a devastating admission that if she can’t find funding to pay for this incredibly important follow up, she won’t go get the test. In the words of the woman who was my first call of this kind, she said, “I have two small children. I will not give up their food or the roof over their heads to get this test.”
We know that this is not the only issues before the legislature and we also appreciate that there is much work to be done when it comes to equity and access to care. With that said, we can’t allow these kinds of choices to continue to be a barrier to life-saving care.
On behalf of the those in treatment, the survivors, the thrivers and metavivors, and the families who carry those we’ve lost in our hearts, we appreciate all of those standing up for these critical issues in our state.
National Healthcare Advocacy. We support the National Breast Cancer Coalition and the Metastatic Breast Cancer Access to Care Act. This Act calls for the passage of legislation to waive the 24-month waiting period for Medicare and the 5-month waiting period for Social Security Disability Insurance benefits for eligible individuals with metastatic breast cancer. You can follow H.R. 549 here. Read the press release here.
As our Board Breast Cancer representative “metathriver”* Bobbi Jo Thomas says, cancer doesn’t care - it doesn’t care if you can afford it, it doesn’t care about your plans. It’s like a big wrecking ball that reprioritizes your life. When you have metastatic cancer, it can be even more intense with choices about treatments and even end of life conversations.
This bill would bring some relief to the additional burden that this diagnosis carries and it will make a difference in countless lives and families.