Denver Affiliate Speaks Out For Under- and Uninsured Women in Colorado: Denver Post Op Ed
Comments One of our goals as the Denver Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure ® is to take a stand and provide information on issues impacting women in our service areas. One of our most critical missions is to support and educate anyone who will listen about the importance of mammography, screening, treatment and prevention.
In our role as educator, sometimes we have to shine a light on some hard realities. We recently had an Op Ed in the Denver Post that focuses on under- and uninsured women in Colorado; one of the most important issues we face as the Affiliate, as part of Komen national, and as a nation.
The article focuses on a recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and outlines what we’ve known for quite some time: Colorado is one of the most restrictive states in the nation when it comes to connecting low-income women with diagnosis and treatment.
Clink here to read the Op Ed and more about this important issue.
Briefly, the study (and the Op Ed) highlighted two troubling findings:
• Due to a lack of funding, more than half of eligible low-income, uninsured and underinsured women nationwide are not receiving recommended breast cancer screening.
• More than a dozen states, including Colorado, have left in place restrictions to Medicaid coverage for breast and cervical cancer screening that effectively eliminate all but a small fraction of low-income women, leaving the rest with few options for assistance.
When Congress passed the Breast and Cervical Cancer Prevention and Treatment Act of 2000 it provided Medicaid coverage to uninsured women with breast or cervical cancer who didn’t meet all of Medicaid’s strict eligibility requirements. Simple. But here’s where it gets complicated, because what the law also did was to give each state the option to implement the law as it saw fit. Some states granted the Medicaid coverage across the board, regardless of what clinic a woman was diagnosed in. Others, like Colorado, are more restrictive and deny coverage to women based on one simple criteria: they were diagnosed outside a federally backed facility.
In other words: if a woman in Colorado gets a breast or cervical cancer diagnosis from a clinic or practice that does not receive specific federal funding, she is not eligible for Medicaid even if she meets all the requirements to do so. Just imagine being a woman who just found out she has breast cancer, of having life as you know it turned upside down and having to worry about whether or not the clinic you have gone to is federally funded or not. Would you even think to ask the question? Probably not.
Whether you live shouldn’t depend on where you live. Regretfully, the GAO report confirms what we’ve long seen – that in our state your ability to be treated for breast cancer often depends on whether you went to the “right” clinic, or live in a city or rural area.
With nearly 54,000 people participating in the 2009 Komen Denver Race for the Cure, we only get glimpses into their stories with their t-shirts, signs and smiles. We wanted to share some of the blog recaps about the Race for the Cure because it gives insight into why we race, and who these participants are (especially the guy running in pink body paint!) We hope you enjoy their stories as much as we do.
By Diane Groff
Are you fundraising?
Sandy Puc′ Portrait Design, a Littleton portrait photography studio, is hosting a Lengths of Love charity party to benefit Locks of Love. You can recognize Sandy’s great work on our blog, and she’s been a wonderful volunteer to the