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Julia MacDonald is the Maine director of government relations for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network.
June is National Cancer Survivors month. I am fortunate to work every day with cancer survivors and have learned one thing: every person’s cancer experience is unique, and common denominators can be hard to come by. But not always.
When we talk about cancer survivorship, there is one thing that rings true across all walks of life and all types of cancer: when people have access to quality, affordable health care, their outcomes improve. Research consistently shows people without health insurance are more likely to be diagnosed with cancer at later stages, when the disease is harder to treat, more costly and patient outcomes are poorer. To put it bluntly, without access to affordable health care, a cancer diagnosis is more likely to become a death sentence.
Medicaid provides health coverage to more than 80 million people in America, including over 390,000 here in Maine. This means they can get regular check-ups to stay healthy, see a doctor when they are sick, and detect diseases like cancer early to give the best chance of survival.
Medicaid allows access to medications and treatments needed. So how can so many members of Congress, in good conscience, support drastically cutting funding for the program?
The proposed Medicaid cuts of at least $793 billion — the largest cuts to Medicaid in history — could terminate health care for millions. These cuts, paired with other pieces of the reconciliation bill that make it more difficult and more expensive for people to enroll in Marketplace plans, will result in nearly 11 million people losing access to health insurance, with no other affordable option available. There is simply no way that cutting billions from Medicaid will make the program stronger.
So, what would these cuts do? Harm, harm, harm — to our economy, to public health and to the wellbeing of the millions of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Mainers, who rely on Medicaid for basic health insurance needs.
This bill would harm Maine families’ ability to stay healthy, provide for their families and get ahead. Tens of thousands of Mainers fighting cancer (including those who don’t yet know they have cancer), seniors in nursing homes, children, veterans, people with disabilities and families working to make ends meet will lose the health care they need.
This bill would harm Maine’s economy. While lawmakers say they are focused on improving government efficiency and reducing red tape, these cuts to Medicaid and the Marketplace would instead impose costly new layers of bureaucracy and administrative hurdles that cut otherwise qualified individuals and families from coverage, leaving states to foot the bill.
The bill harms hardworking Mainers who would lose or would not be able to enroll in coverage because of work requirements. These losses can happen through paperwork mistakes or an inability to comply with cumbersome reporting requirements, or because they are cancer survivors or patients in treatment who can’t navigate the process to prove they are working or deserve an exemption.
This bill harms kids who will lose their parents to cancer. It harms parents who will lose their children to preventable illness or injury. It harms the husband who must say goodbye to his wife because, lacking health care, she missed the screening test that could have saved her life. That means fewer survivors, and more families who will have to say goodbye to a loved one too soon.
Sen. Susan Collins is in a unique position to protect access to health care. We believe it’s incumbent on her to reject the disastrous proposed cuts to Medicaid and prevent the harm that would result to our state, to our economy and, most importantly, to the health of not only Mainers but millions of others across the United States.
On behalf of cancer patients, survivors and the countless Mainers who will be diagnosed with the disease in the future, we urge Sen. Collins to mark this National Cancer Survivors Month by protecting access to affordable health care for those who need it.
