Horner: Cuomo Budget Fails on Cancer

Governor Cuomo's budget fails to tackle NY’s cancer menace
Reorganization plan puts existing programs at risk

Statement from Blair Horner, Vice President for Advocacy, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) of NY & NJ re: Gov. Cuomo’s Executive Budget.

 “Here is what we know, it is estimated that nearly 110,000 New Yorkers will be diagnosed with cancer in 2013 and that over 34,000 will die.  We know that four cancers – lung, breast, colorectal and prostate – account for roughly half of all cancer diagnoses and half of all cancer deaths.  Lung cancer is the number one killer, accounting for a quarter of all cancer deaths.

We know that pockets of New York State have higher than the national average lung cancer deaths –areas in upstate New York and areas which consist of the urban poor.

And we know that New York’s primary mechanisms for dealing with the cancer menace are woefully underfunded.  The state’s program to keep kids from using tobacco and help smokers to quit has lost 50 percent of its funding over the past few years despite the state raising over $2 billion annually in tobacco revenues.  The state’s program to offer free breast, cervical and colorectal cancer screenings for the uninsured only reaches 20 percent of the eligible population. 

So how does the governor’s budget improve this situation?  Hard to say.  The governor proposes to take all of the state’s chronic disease programs and lump them into one appropriation with no hint of how much these lifesaving programs will receive.  Why?  Presumably the governor would argue that the programs will be more efficient.  But then the governor cuts the funding for these programs. 

Thus, it seems unlikely that programs to keep people from getting cancer or which help them to identify that disease earlier will get the money they need – unless future budget decisions ravage other vital chronic disease programs.

We are very concerned that this budget will cut lifesaving programs, as the governor proposed to do last year.  If that’s the goal, then the governor’s budget plan will mean one thing – more devastation caused by cancer.  We urge the legislature to ensure that these important programs are bolstered, not slashed.

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About the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network

ACS CAN, the nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy affiliate of the American Cancer Society, supports evidence-based policy and legislative solutions designed to eliminate cancer as a major health problem. ACS CAN works to encourage elected officials and candidates to make cancer a top national priority. ACS CAN gives ordinary people extraordinary power to fight cancer with the training and tools they need to make their voices heard. For more information, visit www.fightcancer.org.