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At some point in their
lives, nearly every American will have a family
member or friend who must battle breast cancer.
Today, a woman in the United States has a 1 in 7
chance of developing breast cancer in her lifetime
and this year over 216,000 women will receive a
diagnosis of invasive breast cancer. Breast cancer
is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in American
women, excluding skin cancer and it is second only
to lung cancer as the leading cause of
cancer-related deaths among women. Yet current
standards of health care coverage are inadequate to
deal with this pervasive and life-altering disease.
Most importantly, thousands of women each year
undergo mastectomies needlessly and women have even
undergone breast cancer surgery as an outpatient –
the “drive through mastectomy” as it has been called
– being sent home without critical support for their
recovery.
There
is a
solution to this problem. I recently introduced
legislation to increase the standards of care for
women with breast cancer. It will ensure that all
breast cancer patients receive appropriate medical
treatment and are given options when making
decisions that will affect their health. The Breast
Cancer Patient Protection Act of 2005 would improve
access to second opinions, lumpectomy, radiation
therapy, and inpatient care so that women are not
forced to undergo medically unnecessary mastectomies
or settle for insufficient treatment.
This legislation
empowers women and their doctors to make treatment
decisions based on what is medically prudent, not
simply what will achieve short-term savings. The
stress of a cancer diagnosis is debilitating. To
compound that stress, to leave a woman with the
knowledge that she must undergo a disfiguring
procedure due only to her financial position, or to
undergo surgery without proper hospitalization, is
absolutely unconscionable.
The Breast Cancer
Patient Protection Act of 2005 addresses these
problems through creation of a set of crucial
measures to ensure appropriate treatment. The
legislation assures that reasonable inpatient care
will be provided when a woman undergoes invasive
treatment for breast cancer. It further removes the
coverage inequities which cause many women to
undergo surgery that might not be the most
appropriate for them.
This bill achieves
three important objectives. First, it assures a
patient of a second opinion for any cancer
diagnosis. A cancer diagnosis simply must be
reliable. Otherwise, women may be forced to worry
needlessly about their health and seek treatments
that they may not even need.
Second, this
legislation assures a patient of a reasonable
minimum length of hospital stay for invasive
treatment of breast cancer. A health care provider
cannot limit hospital stays for mastectomy or
breast-conserving surgery to less than 48 hours.
Many of us have heard of women receiving outpatient
mastectomies, being sent home without the necessary
support. This legislation establishes a 48 hour
minimum stay assurance for mastectomy and
lumpectomy. I must point out that this assurance
does not require a woman remain hospitalized that
long if she and her doctor concur that she should go
home earlier – nor does it prevent a longer
hospitalization if her medical condition warrants
it. However, this provision will protect women from
that small fraction of insurance plans which will
not allow such reasonable treatment. This assurance
is offered regardless of who regulates the patient’s
plan because no woman should be forced to undergo
such invasive treatment on an outpatient basis.
Finally, this
legislation does more than simply ensure a patient
of reasonable hospitalization; it assures her of
support in making the best choices about her
treatment. For example, it provides support for
lumpectomy treatment because it requires coverage
for radiation therapy for patients undergoing
lumpectomy. Together with the assurance of inpatient
care, this Act removes the economic incentive for a
woman to select mastectomy simply to reduce the
immediate cost of treatment.
This bill will not
only provide a higher standard of care, but will
achieve long term savings in women’s health- both
mental and physical- as well as cost savings.
Lumpectomy followed by radiation is the preferable
treatment for most women with early-stage breast
cancer - but many women have undergone mastectomy
because a lack of coverage – yet the costs of breast
reconstruction are often not considered. In fact,
the finding that breast implants often entail
additional surgeries and may pose health additional
risks demonstrates one reason why long term costs
are greater for mastectomy. Yet thousands continue
to be subjected to unnecessary surgeries. This
legislation will remedy this problem, and ensure
women receive the most appropriate treatment to
preserve their health.
As a woman and a
member of the United States Senate, I pledge to
continue to work with my colleagues in Congress and
lead the charge to raise our nation’s awareness
about breast cancer. Working together and with the
support of breast cancer advocates, we should at
last achieve for American women the protections they
so deserve.
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