WASHINGTON -- February 18, 2011 -- The U.S. House of Representatives is poised to vote on an FY 2011 spending bill that would cut the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget by 5.2 percent and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) budget by 21 percent while prohibiting the enforcement of key provisions of the Affordable Care Act that are critical to people with cancer and their families.
Following is a statement from Christopher W. Hansen, president of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN):
"This legislation represents a major setback in the fight against cancer. Because of past federal investments, we are on the verge of making unprecedented progress in the prevention, detection and treatment of cancer in this country. But if federal cancer research funding is not sustained, the promise of recent discoveries may never become reality for people with cancer and their families.
"The bill's severe cuts to the CDC budget would jeopardize the effectiveness of proven cancer screening programs such as the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program, which has provided 9 million mammograms and Pap tests to more than 3.7 million medically underserved and uninsured women in its 20-year history. The program, which can serve fewer than 1 in 5 eligible women under current funding, would be further hampered under the spending bill.
"The bill also reallocates federal dollars away from the intended priorities of the new Public Health Fund, threatening the fund's historic potential to refocus the health care system on preventing chronic disease and detecting it at its earlier, more treatable stages. Improving the health care system requires doing more than treating the sick -- it necessitates keeping people healthy as well.
"The bill also would prohibit enforcement of critical patient protections that ban lifetime dollar limits on coverage, pre-existing condition exclusions and coverage rescissions when policyholders become sick. If these efforts are successful, there will be no one to administer the historic federal investment in prevention from the new Public Health Fund, and there will be no federal oversight of the new Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan that is providing coverage to those who need it most.
"ACS CAN's grassroots advocates nationwide have sent more than 8,000 calls and emails into congressional offices this week in opposition to the funding cuts. ACS CAN calls on lawmakers to vote against this bill and make cancer a national priority by funding the groundbreaking research projects, lifesaving prevention programs and critical patient protections necessary to end suffering and death from cancer."
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Steven Weiss
(202) 661-5711
[email protected]
Christina Saull
(202) 585-3250
[email protected]
