Our Goal:

To promote new Prostate Cancer legislation as well as maintain existing legislation in California

Equal opportunity for men - The Thomas J. Manton Prostate Cancer Bill

To access the details of this bill please go to this link Details of the Manton Prostate Cancer Bill;
Achieving Parity with Breast and Cervical Cancer -
Presentation file available here)

• To amend the Public Health Service Act and Title XIX of the Social Security Act to provide for a screening and treatment program for prostate cancer in the same manner as is provided for breast and cervical cancer. Thus prostate cancer would simply be put on the same footing as breast and cervical cancers, allowing states to implement early detection and treatment programs for all three cancers for the uninsured and underinsured and allowing the CDC to make grants to states for such purposes. It would NOT take money from the two other cancers, but merely make things equal in terms of programs and applicability for grants. It would thus be a win-win situation for all.
  
  

• Breast and Cervical Cancer Mortality Prevention Acts passed in 1990 - authorizes CDC grants to states for screening of uninsured and underinsured women.
  
  

• Breast and Cervical Cancer Treatment Act passed in 2000 - provides funding for treatment of cancers found in women screened under the above act.
  
  

• The number of new cases of prostate cancer per year - nearly 230,000 - now exceeds the new cases of breast cancer.
  
  

• In spite of this, CDC spends approximately 15 times as much on breast and cervical cancer as is spent on prostate cancer.
  
  

• Early detection and treatment is the key in fighting this disease. The five year survival rate for localized prostate cancer is essentially 100%. If the disease is distant, the 5 year survival rate is 33%.
  
  

• Prostate cancer is no longer an old man's disease - the increase in incidence rate is highest in the 40-49 age group and tends to be more aggressive.
  
  

• House Bill is HR 2131, introduced by Representative Marshall, GA - Senate Bill is S 1275, introduced by Senator Shumer, NY
  
  

• These bills are supported by the National Alliance of State Prostate Cancer Coalitions as well as the National Prostate Cancer Coalition.
  
  

Funding for the Impact Program (SB 650) has been approved in both Assembly and Senate Budget Sub-committees on the consent calendar and we expect similar approval in the Budget Committees. This is the only Prostate Cancer Legislation currently before the Legislature.

The California Prostate Cancer Coalition endorses AB 1324, Retroactive Cancellation of Individual Policies

Health Maintenance organizations (HMOs) have engaged in a practice of dumping ploicyholders after authorizing expensive medical treatment and then refusing to pay their medical bills. This practice is often referred to as "retroactive cancellation of policies" or "post-claim underwriting." In some instances, HMO(s and Insurers find reason to cancel a person's coverage without sufficient cause. Many time the cancellation occurs after years of the consumer paying HMOs.

This bill will place the burden on HMOs and Insurers to prove that an enrollee falsified or misrepresented information about their medical history before canceling any policy. (For details, click on Assembly, and when it comes up click on legislation etc.)

Currently their are numerous bills introduced on Healthcare. Currently the Nunez AB 8 and Perata SB 48 are being debated. The Governor and Senator Kuehl's SB 840 Healthcare legislation are also pending.

To keep up to date on the various Healthcare proposals, we suggest you look in the Political section of you local newspapers, particularly the Sacramento and Fresno Bee's, LA Times and SF Chronicle.