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Budget Resolutions Present Opportunities for Health Care Reform This Year
April 3, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- April 3, 2009 -- “The House and Senate passed Budget Resolutions last night that enable the critical effort to move forward to reform our health care system. The result is good news for cancer patients, survivors and their loved ones who know too well the gaps that exist in the broken health care system.
“We need our elected officials to act on comprehensive reform this year. Delaying action or simply falling back on the status quo is a costly proposition. Reforming the broken health care system is not only critical to defeating cancer, but it is also vital to repairing the ailing economy. Now Congress needs to commit the necessary down payment to ensure that all Americans have access to quality health care.
“Too many Americans are already struggling to keep up with high health care costs and, when jobs are in jeopardy, access to quality, affordable health care more often hangs in the balance. American Cancer Society research shows that the lack of access to health insurance too often results in a later-stage cancer diagnosis, when the disease is more expensive to treat and harder to survive. We need to transform our broken ‘sick care’ system into one that focuses on prevention and keeping people well.
“In addition to making a commitment to health care reform, the Budget Resolutions are a first step toward increasing funding for prevention and cancer research in the FY 2010. We already have many of the tools we need to detect a disease that will kill an estimated 560,000 people in America this year, but we must ensure that all Americans have access to critical screenings and treatments. Further, we need money for research to develop tests and treatments for those deadly cancers for which we still lack answers.
“ACS CAN is proud to be working with a broad cross-section of stakeholders to make sure health care reform is a top priority in the 111th Congress. Fixing the broken health care system requires that we focus more on prevention and ensure that all Americans have access to health coverage that is adequate, affordable, available and administratively simple.”
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 https://www.fightcancer.org/.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Steven Weiss
Phone: (202) 661-5711
Email: [email protected]
Alissa Havens
Phone: (202) 661-5772
Email: [email protected]
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