As Congress and the president consider ways to address the looming debt limit, our nation’s progress against cancer should not be up for negotiation.
Capping federal funding will lead to cuts to cancer research and impact future innovation. Cancer research can’t be turned on and off like a light switch. We will lose progress, risk losing talented scientific expertise and compromise losing U.S. leadership in the cancer research space.
Setting up barriers to health insurance through Medicaid will compromise access to proven cancer care and lead to later-stage cancer diagnoses, when the disease is more expensive to treat, and survival is less likely. Furthermore, the evidence is clear: work requirements don’t work. I’m deeply concerned about what these proposals mean in the fight against cancer.
Cuts to care and cuts to cures threaten our goal to end cancer as we know it, for everyone.
We can’t afford to turn the clock back on cancer progress. I urge Congress to oppose any cuts to cancer cures or cancer care in a final debt ceiling deal.
Catherine Standiford, Salt Lake City