On May 11, Senate opponents of S.1955 were able to defeat efforts to have the bill considered on the Senate floor. Details of how your Senator voted can be found here. The "no" votes supported our position, and will be thanked for their support.
This means that S. 1955 is stalled, at least for now. S. 1955 (Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization & Affordability Act) which attempts to lower insurer costs by preempting access to medical care guaranteed at the state level. See a summary of the action and comments from all sides of the debate here.
The logic behind S. 1955 is: "We need cheaper health care. Health care that’s not required to include things like colon cancer screening will cost less. Therefore, if we drop the requirements to provide coverage for things like colon cancer screening, health care will be cheaper."
My grandmother would have called this "penny wise, pound foolish." Yes, we save money in the short run. If people over age 50 aren’t screened for colon cancer, their insurance will cost less. But what happens to people who GET colon cancer? Studies have shown that colon cancer screening is cost-effective–and most importantly, it saves lives.
C3 strongly opposed S. 1955 (PDF file) and we wish to thank all of you who responded to our action alert to support our position.
Colorectal cancer wasn’t the only screening threatened by S. 1955. Opposition was led by a large coalition of health advocacy organizations, including the American Cancer Society (PDF file), AARP, the American Diabetes Association and the National Partnership for Women and Children. A group of 39 state attorneys general submitted a letter saying, "Insurers of individual, small group and large group policies could ignore [state] requirements in favor of the bare-bones plans, subjecting consumers to reduced care and ever-increasing out-of-pocket expenses."
Alternatives to S. 1955 are being proposed by Senator Olympia Snowe, and by Senators Durbin and Lincoln.
May 20, 2006 at 4:02 pm, Terry said:
We need more preventative procedures. It is much better, cost wise, to continue paying and promoting colonoscopy screenings than it is to treat one patient for colon cancer.