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Keep Telling your Legislators:
"Don't Cut Medicaid Funding"
Thank you to all who have taken action to urge your legislators to protect Medicaid. Here is a quick update on what happened last week and the next steps:
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Last week, the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee and then the House Budget Committee passed legislation that would remove over 8.3 million people from Medicaid and cause another 5 million people to lose their ACA marketplace coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office's estimates.
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Now, the full House is expected to vote on the budget reconciliation bill this week - as soon as today. If it passes the House, it will go to the Senate, where it will go through a similar process. With several more steps and hurdles to jump through before this legislation would become law, it gives us more opportunities to speak up. Let's keep up the pressure!
Please contact your U.S. Representative TODAY. Even if you previously did so, please reach out again! It never hurts to repeat our message: proposed cuts and changes to Medicaid will harm families, weaken our communities, and impact hundreds of thousands of breast cancer patients and survivors.
Ways to Take Action TODAY:
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Use the scripts and information in the pink box below to call your U.S. Representative's office or send an email
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Use the National Breast Cancer Coalition's Action Tool to send an email.
Background
Congress is considering major cuts to Medicaid as part of the budget reconciliation bill. VBCF is very concerned that cuts to Medicaid would cause millions of low-income Americans, including many breast cancer patients, to become uninsured while cutting payments to the hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, and other health providers on which all Americans rely. Rural areas, where cancer care is already difficult, would be among the hardest hit. Nearly 2 million Virginians depend on Medicaid/CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program) for their health care.
Medicaid serves a crucial role in providing care for low-income women with breast cancer. The Breast and Cervical Cancer Treatment Program, enacted by Congress in 2000, provides enhanced matching funds to Virginia to provide Medicaid coverage to uninsured or underinsured women diagnosed with breast or cervical cancer through Virginia's free screening program, Every Woman's Life (EWL). Cuts to Medicaid could dismantle this life-saving treatment program.
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