2020 Maine Session Summary
Victory in the fight against cancer requires bold new public policies that promote cancer prevention, early detection of cancer, and expand access to quality, affordable health care.
News
Grassroots Support Leads to Palliative Care Victory!
March 2, 2017
For the better part of a year-and-a-half, ACS CAN volunteers and staff in Wyoming worked on passing model palliative care legislation that would create a statewide task force to assess how healthcare facilities can make palliative care more available to patients with serious illnesses—improving quality of life while saving healthcare dollars. That work culminated in a victory in this year’s legislative session.
For the 2017 session, the Wyoming team changed their approach, looking at this issue as an opportunity to grow the ACS CAN grassroots network in the state. ACS CAN focused activists’ efforts around securing personalized postcards to legislators from their constituents—leveraging the fact that mail to Wyoming legislators is delivered to their desks on the floors of the Capitol chambers. Postcards were collected across the state for months, and hundreds of people filled out virtual or printed postcards in support of this bill. Legislators loved getting something different. Anyone can do an email, but these were personalized and from people they knew.
The bill passed the Senate without opposition, the House of Representatives on a 35-25 vote and was signed in early March by Governor Matt Mead with ACS CAN volunteers and staff looking on.