Empowering patient voices through voter registration
While roughly 83% of adults in the United States will visit a health care provider in the next year, an estimated
News
7-29-10 Affordable Care Act Update
August 3, 2010
Below is this week’s update on the Affordable Care Act. As always, thank you for all you do every day to support laws and policies that help cancer patients and their families.
Kaiser Poll Shows Declining Opposition to Affordable Care Act
A new tracking poll out today from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that opposition to the Affordable Care Act declined to 35 percent from 41 percent last month. Support for the new law is at 50 percent, a slight increase over the 48 percent last month, and 14 percent of respondents said they have no opinion about the law, up from 10 percent in June. Roughly one-third (32 percent) of respondents said they do not understand how the law will impact them and their family. The poll found that seniors continue to oppose the law in higher numbers than the general public, but more than one-third of seniors still falsely believe that the law establishes “death panels.”
This poll and others call out the continued importance of educating staff, volunteers, and the public at large about how the Affordable Care Act will meaningfully improve the health care system for people with cancer and their families. Read more about the poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation and The Washington Post.
HHS Releases Interim Final Appeals Regulation and Announces Funding for New Consumer Assistance Grants Program
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released an interim final rule on provisions in the Affordable Care Act that provides consumers new rights to appeal decisions made by their health plans and establishes a new $30 million grant program to establish and strengthen consumer assistance offices in states and territories.
The regulation will standardize both an internal and external process that patients can use to appeal decisions made by their health plan. New health plans beginning on or after September 23, 2010, must adopt an internal process that allows consumers to file an appeal when a claim for a covered service has been denied. Those plans are required to instruct consumers about how they can begin the appeals process. In addition, states will have to provide consumers with access to a standard external appeals process. HHS will work with states to establish or update their external appeals process to meet the new federal standards. If state laws do not meet the federal standards, consumers in those states will be protected by comparable federal external appeals standards.
ACS CAN has reviewed the regulation and considers it to be an important improvement in providing patients with important rights and clear information about those rights. ACS CAN will work in partnership with other organizations to make formal comments for improvements and clarifications on specific issues raised in the regulation.
The $30 million that was also announced will fund the Consumer Assistance Grant Program. Funding will be made available to states and territories to educate consumers about their health coverage options, help them enroll in health coverage, and assist them in filing complaints and appeals against health plans. Eligible applicants for the grants include state insurance departments, state attorneys general, independent state consumer assistance agencies, and other state agencies. States and territories may also partner with non-profit organizations that have a track record of working with consumers.
20th Anniversary of the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program
ACS CAN marked the 20th anniversary of the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (NBCCEDP) at a media event Tuesday on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Joining us to celebrate the success of the program and to emphasize the need for more federal funding were U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), U.S. Representative Sue Myrick (R-NC), and U.S. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL). Dr. Marcus Plescia, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Cancer Prevention and Control Division, and ACS CAN volunteer Vonnie Uzoukwu, a breast cancer survivor and NBCCEDP recipient, also spoke at the event.
ACS CAN released a report at the event titled "Decades of Detection: Progress and Challenges of the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening and Treatment Programs." The report highlights stories of women who benefited from the program and emphasizes the need for adequate funding that would enable the program to screen more women. Read the report.
The NBCCEDP will remain an essential program for improving access to breast and cervical cancer screening and treatment for our nation's most vulnerable populations even after 2014, when the state health care exchanges created in the Affordable Care Act are up and running. It will also be critical to use the program's strong infrastructure and community outreach specialists to help women and their families enroll in various insurance options for which they qualify. Read ACS CAN’s press release recognizing the program’s anniversary.
ACS CAN Cancer Poll Now Online
A consumer-friendly guide summarizing ACS CAN's poll of people with cancer and their families is now available. The guide details the top-line findings from the poll and includes charts that make the data easy to understand. ACS CAN has ordered a limited number of printed copies of the guide, which grassroots volunteers will deliver to congressional offices during the ACS CAN Leadership Summit and Lobby Day in September. The guide is also available online and as a PDF file on The Link.
ACS CAN’s cancer poll, which was released June 23, found that a large proportion of cancer patients and survivors struggled to gain access to quality, affordable health care in the system that existed prior to the Affordable Care Act. The poll also found that although a minority of cancer patients and survivors are familiar with specific provisions of reform that will benefit patients, an overwhelming majority supports those provisions after learning about them. In addition, the poll showed that few cancer patients have had meaningful conversations with their doctor or other health care providers about quality of life issues including pain and the emotional impact of fighting cancer. Finally, the poll revealed that large majorities of people with cancer are likely to re-elect a Member of Congress who supports increasing federal funding for cancer research, and large majorities support increasing the federal tobacco tax to help fund such research.
The poll is a valuable tool for making the case to lawmakers, staff and volunteers, the media, and the public at large that the health care system before the Affordable Care Act was failing people with cancer and their families, a constituency that strongly supports the patient-centered provisions of the new law and fervently believes in the importance of increasing cancer research funding.
Christopher W. Hansen
President
American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN)