BREAST CANCER PATIENTS NEED HELP GETTING THERAPIES.

Byline: Kathleen Connell 

WOMEN with breast cancer should spend their energies fighting the cancer, not insurance companies.

Every woman should be able to make decisions on her care and treatment with her doctors and her family. Too often today, an insurance company is coming between a woman, her doctor and a cure.

The fact is that breast cancer is the leading cause of death among women ages 40 to 49.

For some with the most severe breast cancers, bone-marrow transplant therapy is a proven lifesaver. However, even when a woman's doctor has recommended this procedure, HMOs and health insurers may deny coverage.

This forces women to file lawsuits in an attempt to receive the treatment. In the process, women lose precious time in the fight for their lives.

We can change that. Our state Legislature can do it by passing legislation I am sponsoring, a bill carried by Assemblywoman Carole Migden, D-San Francisco. This legislation, AB 760, would provide that:

Any individual with breast cancer whose physician recommends the treatment - autologous bone-marrow transplantation - or other commonly recognized breast cancer treatment, but whose HMO or health insurer denies coverage for it, would have prompt access to an independent, expedited review of the coverage decision.

If the independent review panel determines that the patient should receive ABMT, then the HMO or health insurer must cover it.

This legislation is the next step in a process that began a year ago when, as a board member for the California Public Employees Retirement System, I led the move to expand ABMT coverage to the more than 400,000 women insured by CalPERS. One year later, it is working for the women insured by CalPERS.

Now it is time for all Californians to know the facts: that in 1997, nearly 20,000 California women will be diagnosed with breast cancer for the first time, and that during the same period, approximately 5,000 California women will die of the cancer.

In citing those figures, it is important to consider our options. These statistics can cause us to shrink in fear, or they can spur us to action.

We must act. We must help women and their doctors and nurses fight this cancer. We must do what we can, and we must do it now.

Among those already supporting the legislation are the California Nurses Association, the American Cancer Society, City of Hope, Save Our Selves and Christian Women Against Cancer, along with hundreds of women who have written to me expressing their support.

I am calling on the state Legislature and the governor to take the necessary next step and enact this bill.

Let's make sure that all California women who need them can have access to lifesaving breast cancer therapies.