John Edwards
NBCC sent a letter to each Presidential candidate requesting a video response telling us what he or she would do as President to eradicate breast cancer. We also asked for a written response to NBCC's core issues. Below is John Edward's response.
On Wednesday, January 30, 2008, John Edwards withdrew his name as a presidential candidate.
1. Guaranteed access to quality health care for all
I believe that anyone who faces a diagnosis of cancer should have the same high quality care that my wife, Elizabeth, has received. To make that possible, we must guarantee quality, affordable health care for every man, woman and child in America.
For more than 20 years, Democrats have talked about universal health care, but have gotten nowhere because the big insurance companies, drug companies and HMOs have spent millions to block real reform. We need to end the game in Washington and build one America, with one health system where every American can get decent, affordable health care. I have a bold plan to stand up to the big drug and insurance companies and finally guarantee true universal health care while cutting costs for families and employers.
Five elements of my plan for true universal care are important to realizing the goal of high quality care for everyone facing a diagnosis of cancer. First, every last person will have health coverage. This is critical because you can't get chemotherapy in the emergency room. Second, there will be no more exclusions of pre-existing conditions -- no more children who have survived cancer and are locked out of health coverage for the rest of their lives. Third, my plan will improve the treatment of chronic care. Because of improvements in treatment, many cancer survivors, including Elizabeth, are living with cancer as a chronic condition. Fourth, under my plan insurance companies will offer a full range of preventive and early treatment services, including screening for cancer, at little or no cost. Preventive care is so important, but more than half of the 18 million adult women in this country without health insurance have not had a mammogram for two years. That's not right and we can do better than that. Fifth, my plan includes a patients' bill of rights so health insurance companies are held accountable when they try to deny coverage for treatment.
Under my plan, businesses will either cover their employees or help pay their premiums. The government will make insurance affordable through new tax credits and by leading the way toward more cost-effective care. New "Health Care Markets" will give families and businesses purchasing power and a choice of quality plans, including one public plan. Finally, once these steps have been taken, all American residents will be required to take responsibility and get insurance. Because the system offers Americans the choice of public insurance, over time it may evolve toward a single-payer approach.
Families without insurance will get it at an affordable price. Families that have insurance today will pay less and get more security and choices. Employers will find it cheaper and easier to insure their workers. I have proposed steps that will save an average family $2,000 to $2,500 a year and eliminate at least $130 billion a year in wasteful health care spending. I will also identify and encourage the most cost-effective treatments and take on abuses in the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
We need to be honest about the cost of universal health care. My plan costs $90 billion to $120 billion a year. I will pay for it by repealing President Bush's income tax cuts for Americans who make more than $200,000 per year. Others may disagree, but I believe affordable, guaranteed health care for working people is more important than tax breaks for the wealthy. I also believe you can't say you have a serious plan for health care unless you have a plan to actually pay for it.
2. $150 million for the Department of Defense Peer-reviewed Breast Cancer Research Program
As a member of the Senate, I repeatedly voted to support the Department of Defense breast cancer research initiative and I will continue to support it as president.
We need to step up our research efforts to find the causes of cancer, as well as better treatments. And that research must be transparent, accountable and be driven by science, not ideology. As president, I will increase NIH funding. It used to be that close to five out of 10 requests for National Cancer Institute grants were approved. Now it's less than two out of 10, and existing grants are being cut back. The answers to the problems we face could be somewhere in the eight we turn down. I support substantial increases in funding for the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health -- which supports the National Cancer Institute -- and other ongoing initiatives, as well as measures to ensure transparency in funding decisions, accountability for results and align research with outcomes.
Because I believe that policy should be science driven, and that science shouldn't be politics driven, I respect science. Ideological debates have drained resources from promising research. I will increase funding for and lift stifling research restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, while banning reproductive human cloning.
3. Enactment of the Breast Cancer Environmental Research Act
We don't know enough about what factors in the environment "in the air, the water and elsewhere" cause cancer. We need more research to collect and analyze the evidence, allay concerns and take corrective action dictated by the science.
I am proud to have sponsored the Breast Cancer Environmental Research Act when I served in the Senate, and I look forward to enacting that kind of new national initiative as president.
4. Preservation of the Medicaid Breast and Cervical Cancer Treatment Program
As a senator, I co-sponsored the Breast and Cervical Cancer Prevention and Treatment Act. Initiatives that seek to eliminate heath care disparities, like the Medicaid Breast and Cervical Cancer Treatment Program, are crucial to ensuring that every American fighting cancer gets the quality treatment they deserve. Currently, low-income families, limited English language speakers and people of color are less likely to receive quality care.
We still have two health care systems in America. For instance, while African American women are less likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer than white women, they are more likely to die from the disease-- the five-year survival rate for white women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer is 90 percent while the five-year survival rate for black women with the same diagnosis is only 76 percent.
I will support medical research into disparities so we can effectively target our resources to improve, reduce pollutions and toxins that disproportionately harm low-income areas and communities of color, and invest in translation services to address language barriers that can impede care or cause medical errors. I will also address disparities in health caused by disparities in insurance by implementing universal coverage. And because disparities persist today even among Americans with health insurance, I will make sure all health providers implement evidence-based medicine that makes best practices contagious.