Friday, March 31, 2017

Notebook Page 24 March 2017

March came in like a lamb as far as the Michigan legislature is concerned but on the federal level, the roar of the health care lion was heard loud and clear nationwide. House Republicans in Congress said that the time was now to finally repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with the American Health Care Act. By the end of March would House Republicans have the ability to move the legislation across the finish line in the House, let's review March.

State:

In Michigan, the legislature continued crafting their policy legislation for the coming term. Many new members in the House were just starting to have their first bills introduced on the House floor, while the Senate will moving legislation as if nothing was new in their chamber. The House and Senate concentrated on their respective budgets by continuing and finalizing hearings. Earlier in the year, the House attempted to pass a cut to the state's income tax that would leave a $1.1 Billion hole in the State's budget. Now it appears that the House is looking to start making some of those cuts without cutting the income tax with reductions seen in most budgets that the House has passed already. The Health and Human Services budget hasn't been passed yet by the subcommittee and full appropriations committee as of yet. It is the largest budget in state government so it may take a week to finalize the budgetary numbers.

On the policy side, there is a large push with the introduction of several bills that would control the availability, accessibility, and the clinical use of opioids. Pain management is a part of palliative care and ensuring that patients have access to quality palliative care continues to be a top priority for ACS CAN. We will be working with the legislature, policy makers, and those groups working to ensure that quality access continues to be at the forefront of the discussion. Our legislation around oral chemotherapy fairness and tobacco taxes should be finished and ready for introduction by the end of April.

Federal:

On March 24, the U.S. House of Representatives failed to vote on the American Health Care Act (AHCA). This bill would have significantly altered the accessibility, adequacy, and affordability of meaningful health insurance for millions of Americans, including those who have coverage through Medicaid. ACS CAN does not support this legislation because it would undermine access to affordable, quality coverage, and put patient protections at risk.

The bill would significantly reduce the number of Americans able to access and afford quality health insurance. According to an initial report on the legislation by the Congressional Budget Office, 15 million more Americans would have been uninsured by next year and 52 million Americans would be uninsured by 2026—24 million more than under current law. This includes millions of low-income Americans who, because of significant Medicaid funding cuts, a reduction in the premium tax credit and expanded age-rating, would be priced out of the health insurance market. Many of these same Americans also have higher risk factors for cancer.

In the end, House Speaker Paul Ryan, his leadership team, and the Administration decided to pull the vote on Repeal & Replace of the Affordable Care Act since they could not secure the necessary votes to pass the legislation.  Although the current law is not perfect it is critical for so many as it relates to our cancer mission.

The President recently introduced a proposed the fiscal year 2018 budget that includes deep cuts to medical research. If approved by Congress, the cuts would represent 19 percent of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) total budget and would likely result in a $1 billion cut to the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

The proposed reduction in NIH funding of $5.8 billion would represent a significant setback for millions of American cancer patients, survivors, and their families. It would also dramatically constrain the prospect for breakthrough American medical innovation—an essential American economic driver.

If enacted, the budget proposal would likely result in a nearly $1 billion decrease for cancer research at NCI—making it the largest funding reduction in its history. The cuts would set research funding back to the level it was in 2000 when accounting for inflation.

In December, Congress passed the 21st Century Cures Act. This bill represented lawmakers' overwhelming bipartisan commitment to the promise and necessity of medical research to our country's future.  The legislation included $4.8 billion in new funding for the NIH, including $1.8 billion for the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative. This legislation provided substantial new investment in research and will lead to new ways to prevent, detect and treat cancer and other serious diseases.  The proposed cuts that have been introduced will erase all of that.

NIH-funded medical research is conducted in thousands of labs and universities across the country. These grants in turn spawn increased private investment and development. Drastically reducing NIH's budget would jeopardize our nation's potential to save more lives while simultaneously risking America's position as the global leader in medical research.

Michigan Day at the Capitol:

ACS CAN advocates were very active around this issue and the hard work showed as key members of Congress backed away from their initial support for the legislation.  Our work on the Affordable Care Act is not over and ACS CAN will remain diligent in our efforts to ensure that health care is adequate and affordable for everyone.

Registration for Michigan’s Day at the Capitol (formerly called Lobby Day) has been open for just about a month now.  The Day at the Capitol will be on Wednesday, May 3rd.  Registration will close on April 21st.  This year, we’ll be holding our event at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Lansing.  The agenda for the day will be similar to previous years with some small changes.  The URL below will take you to the registration site.

www.acscan.org/milobbyday 

Any ACS volunteer is welcome to attend, but please let ACS CAN staff know prior to inviting anyone to ensure we are getting the right volunteers. We are looking for volunteers that are motivated to make a difference in the fight against cancer, are passionate about our mission, and are willing to share their cancer story.  Volunteers do not need to be advocacy volunteers or have any experience advocating. Appointments with lawmakers will be scheduled for all volunteers that attend.  

Our Day at the Capitol will focus on three important issues this year:
·        The need to increase tobacco taxes to curb youth tobacco use and provide much-needed funding for Michigan’s prevention programs, which have been drastically cut over the past decade, to provide cancer services and tobacco prevention to Michigan residents that need it the most.
·        Increase access to cancer drugs through Oral Chemotherapy fairness.
·        Create a roadmap for the future of Palliative Care in Michigan

If you have any questions about Michigan's Day at the Capitol or any other questions, please contact Matt Phelan (matt.phelan@cancer.org) or Andrew Schepers (andrew.schepers@cancer.org)

Take Aways:


  • No changes planned at this point for tobacco and cancer prevention funding levels in the budget.
  • Legislation to limit the ability to prescribe and use opioids has been introduced and could affect cancer patients and their pain management.
  • Register for Michigan's Day at the Capitol at www.acscan.org/milobbyday

Friday, March 3, 2017

Notebook Page 23 February 2017

Budgets and taxes continue to dominate the activity of the Michigan legislature during February. The Governor presented his budget to the legislation early in the month which provides some positive points for patients around Michigan. Governor Snyder continued to show support for the Healthy Michigan Plan, Michigan’s Medicaid expansion. Also included in the budget was a continuation of the funding for the cancer and tobacco prevention programs. Those continue to stay at their current funding levels for the coming year. Now the House and Senate will continue to review the proposal and take testimony from groups around the state on the different issues included in the budget.

On February, ACS CAN along with AHA and ALA hosted a welcoming reception for the members of the 99th legislature. This provided a great opportunity to meet some of the new lawmakers and talk to those seasoned veterans of the legislature on the major issues facing the groups this year. Attendance for the first time a was a little space, but it isn’t due to the issues of our three groups but rather taxes.

The same night the House decided to take a vote in passing a roll back of Michigan’s income tax. The current rate is at 4.25% and when that was raised there was a promise from the legislature that a rollback would happen over several years to 3.9%. The state still continued to need the money being generated from the increase so a couple years after the raise, the legislature went in and made the raise permanent.

House Republicans this year felt that this was the year that the state needed to make good on the promise of a rollback and so they pushed through legislation to do just that. What would a rollback mean, it would create a hole in the state budget to the tune of $1.1 Billion. This is a major concern is that with the declining funds major programs that we are supportive of like programs above would be cut or eliminated.

The members of the House spent over 12 hours in the House chamber trying to get enough support to have the measure pass, but at the end of the day, it failed by three votes. Now the House will continue to work the issue and can ask for the vote to be reconsidered, so this issue isn’t over yet and we will continue to monitor the activity around this issue.

Registration for Michigan’s Day at the Capitol (formerly called Lobby Day) is now open.  The Day at the Capitol will be on Wednesday, May 3rd.  Registration will close on April 21st.  This year, we’ll be holding our event at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Lansing.  The agenda for the day will be similar as previous years with some small changes.  The urn below will take you to the registration site. 


Any ACS volunteer is welcome to attend, but please let ACS CAN staff know prior to inviting anyone to ensure we are getting the right volunteers. We are looking for volunteers that are motivated to make a difference in the fight against cancer, are passionate about our mission, and are willing to share their cancer story.  Volunteers do not need to be advocacy volunteers or have any experience advocating. Appointments with lawmakers will be scheduled for all volunteers that attend.   

Our Day at the Capitol will focus on three important issues this year: 
·        The need to increase tobacco taxes to curb youth tobacco use and provide much needed funding for Michigan’s prevention programs, which have been drastically cut over the past decade, to provide cancer services and tobacco prevention to Michigan residents that need it the most. 
·        Increase access to cancer drugs through Oral Chemotherapy fairness. 
·        Create a road map for the future of Palliative Care in Michigan 

If you have any questions about Michigan's Day at the Capitol, please contact Matt Phelan. 

Our ACS CAN ACT Leads and Ambassadors are completing “Drop Bys” to their members of congress with our federal #KeepUsCovered campaign to address the ongoing debate around the Affordable Care Act.  Volunteers will continue to contact members of Congress to discuss the issue of adequate and affordable healthcare for all cancer patients and survivors. 

As always, if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact Matt (matt.phelan@cancer.org) or myself (Andrew.schepers@cancer.org) with any of your questions.

Take Aways:

·        Budget work continues with no impending cuts to tobacco and cancer prevention programs and shows Healthy Michigan.

·        House fails to pass income tax rollback. This would have drastic impacts on the state, creating $1.1 Billion hole.