Tea Party ‘Death Panel’ Cuts Down On Cancer Care For The Poor
The real death panel is rearing its ugly head in Wisconsin where Governor Scott Walker and his supporters are restructuring a program that offers free health care to low-income women. This is against the backdrop of Walker rejecting the Medicaid expansion.
Dawn Anderson, executive director of the Wisconsin Breast Cancer Coalition, told WisPolitics.com that her group — officially the only state breast cancer group to focus on policy — is now gathering support from other breast cancer organizations that normally avoid politics.
The groups are working together in support of the state’s Well Woman Program, which provides free mammograms, cervical cancer screenings, multiple sclerosis testing and other services to low-income women without insurance.
“This Well Woman Program is so important that the two Wisconsin affiliates of the Susan Komen Foundation have linked elbows with us and we sent a joint letter to the governor … to which we have gotten no response,” said Anderson.
And the state is falsely blaming Obamacare for the cutbacks.
Jennifer Miller, communications specialist with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, confirmed to WisPolitics that as of July 1, a “restructuring” of the Well Woman Program will occur, and that a smaller number of providers will be available to women statewide.
“The program is not going to be closed,” said Miller, “but we expect the number of women who qualify will become smaller as more women are serviced by the ACA or BadgerCare.”…
But Brittany Behm, spokeswoman for the CDC, told WisPolitics today that no decision has been made to reduce funding for women’s health screenings and noted that funding nationwide last year was substantially increased.
In an email statement, Behm said: “Decisions about funding for the NBCCEDP and all other programs at the CDC are made annually by Congress. In the recently passed fiscal year (FY) 2014 appropriations bill, Congress provided almost $10 million more to the NBCCEDP than it did for FY 2013. CDC makes individual grantee funding decisions based on a variety of factors and these decisions are not made public until final award announcements are made at the end of June.”
