by Delegate Joey Garcia
All politics are local. It’s an old saying that still endures today. It encapsulates the concept that personal concerns are more important than lofty ideas. And the greatest impact policymakers can make are improvements to our families’ and neighbors’ everyday lives.
Here in the Mountain State, we all face a shared threat: cancer. More than 13,000 West Virginians will learn they have cancer this year. And cancer will take more than 4,600 lives. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we have the highest cancer death rate in the nation.
One in four West Virginia seniors has had cancer during their lifetime. Age is the greatest risk factor, with 70% of all cancer diagnoses occurring among Medicare patients. While our aging loved ones stare down cancer, our state and federal lawmakers are fighting to ensure they have the tools that will enable them to have the best chance at survival.
In March, I joined the entire House of Delegates in passing House Resolution 82, a copy of which was sent to President Joe Biden, Gov. Jim Justice and each member of the West Virginia Congressional Delegation.
H.R. 82 was a mark of support for the Medicare Multi-Cancer Early Detection Screening Coverage Act, legislation designed to ensure Medicare can cover new cancer screenings as soon as they are approved for widespread use.
A robust bipartisan list of more than 300 members of Congress (including our own Sen. Capito, Congresswoman Miller and Congressman Mooney) signed on to the bill last year. This year, advocates like us are determined to see it passed into law.
State resolutions in support of national legislation are uncommon. But this is a life and death issue that impacts every single one of us. This year, West Virginians are counting on Congress to pass this bill before it is too late.
Multi-cancer early detection (MCED) screenings are new technologies that have the potential to revolutionize the health care world for the better. Currently under review by the Food and Drug Administration, these blood tests will allow physicians to detect dozens of cancers at once.
At the moment, recommended screenings exist for a grand total of five types of cancer. This means, of course, the majority of cancers can only be detected when symptoms arise. And, depending on the cancer, longer term survival is much less likely among those cases than among cancers caught earlier.
We do not yet have the silver bullet to defeat cancer. What we have are good defense options, and early screenings are our best plays. At the moment, early detection tests like mammograms, colonoscopies and pap smears are commonplace. They save lives. MCEDs expand this safety net by an order of magnitude to other deadly cancers like pancreatic, stomach and head and neck cancers.
Every West Virginian determined to be at risk of developing cancer deserves access to these screenings.
But access and availability are precisely what’s at issue at the federal level. If the Medicare program is not updated, our most vulnerable populations will not be able to access MCEDs without delay. There is really no excuse for this, especially since, in the past, Congress has updated the law to ensure Medicare can cover the first generation of early screening technologies.
Lawmakers in Washington have done it before. They can do it again.
We encourage everyone to urge our representatives in Washington to pass the Medicare Multi-Cancer Early Detection Screening Coverage Act (S. 2085) / Nancy Gardner Sewell Medicare Multi-Cancer Early Detection Screening Coverage Act (H.R. 2407) into law.
Together, we can change the lives of West Virginians facing this terrible disease.
