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Legislative Priorities

NBCC HAS ESTABLISHED THE FOLLOWING FEDERAL LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES:

Priority #1

Guaranteed access to quality health care for all. We will not end breast cancer until all women have guaranteed access to quality health care regardless of their ability to pay. The National Breast Cancer Coalition (NBCC) has established eight principles that are essential to achieving guaranteed access to quality care. NBCC carefully measures all legislation according to our principles. The new health care system should also incorporate NBCC's vision of quality care and reflect the following values: access, information, choice, respect, accountability and improvement. We will use these criteria as the basis for developing a model for guaranteed access to quality health care for all.

Priority #2

$150 million appropriation (level funding) for the Department of Defense (DOD) peer-reviewed Breast Cancer Research Program for fiscal year 2006.

Priority #3

Enactment of the Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Act (S. 757/H.R. 2231). It is generally believed that the environment plays a role in the development of breast cancer, but the extent of that role is not understood. The National Breast Cancer Coalition believes that this critical issue must be approached thoughtfully and methodically and that a national strategy for increasing knowledge in this area must be developed. The Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Act would create grants for the establishment of multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary research centers to study the potential link between the environment and breast cancer. Grants are awarded based on a competitive, peer-reviewed process that involves consumer advocates.

Priority #4

Preservation of the Medicaid Breast and Cervical Cancer Treatment Program (BCCTP). In 2000, after years of NBCC grassroots lobbying and influence, Congress enacted a Medicaid expansion to treat women with breast cancer. This expansion, the BCCTP, provides enhanced matching funds to states to provide Medicaid coverage for treatment of breast and cervical cancer to low-income women screened and diagnosed through a federal program-expanding access to care for thousands of underserved women. To date, all 50 states and the District of Columbia have opted into the program, but efforts to reduce funding for Medicaid or dramatically alter the program threaten the future of the BCCTP. NBCC will work to protect and preserve the BCCTP and Medicaid.

To find out more about NBCC's Legislative Priorities, click here.

 

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