Federal Policy

The Wisconsin Breast Cancer Coalition has a long history of supporting the federal policy priorities of the National Breast Cancer Coalition (NBCC). We work with them to educate our congressional delegation about those priorities and to gain their support. We call on our grassroots network of advocates around the state to respond to national legislative alerts.

Our advocacy with the NBCC has been enormously successful in helping to get important legislation passed relating to research funding and access to quality care.

National Breast Cancer Coalition 2024 Legislative and Public Policy Priorities

Each year the grassroots NBCC Board of Directors, with input from its members, sets the public policy and legislative priorities for the coming year. They serve as the foundation of NBCC’s legislative advocacy work throughout the year, and along with grassroots mobilization efforts, provide the context for the action alerts sent to its network. NBCC’s legislative priorities 1 and 2 were also chosen as WBCC’s federal priorities for 2023 (click here to read more about WBCC’s state priorities).

Legislative Priorities

PRIORITY #1:
$150 Million/Level Funding for the Department of Defense (DOD) Breast Cancer Research Program (BCRP) for FY2025: As a result of NBCC’s grassroots advocacy, the DOD BCRP was created in 1992 to end breast cancer for Service Members, Veterans, and the general public by funding innovative, high-impact research through a partnership of scientists and consumers. The DOD BCRP is widely viewed as an innovative, unique, and efficient medical research model which has proven to be accountable to the public and has produced extraordinary results. NBCC seeks continued level funding.

PRIORITY #2:
Metastatic Breast Cancer Access to Care Act: This legislation would waive the 24-month waiting period for Medicare and the five-month waiting period for Social Security Disability Insurance benefits for eligible individuals with Metastatic Breast Cancer. [Learn more about how you can help WBCC advocate for this legislation!]

PRIORITY #3:
Preservation of the Medicaid Breast and Cervical Cancer Treatment Program: Congress enacted the Breast and Cervical Cancer Treatment Act in 2000 after years of NBCC grassroots lobbying and influence. NBCC remains committed to ensuring all women and men screened and diagnosed with breast cancer have access to the treatment they need.

Public Policy Priorities

PRIORITY #1:
Guaranteed Access to Quality Care for All: Ensuring access to quality evidence-based health care has been a top priority of NBCC for many years. NBCC supports healthcare access initiatives that expand access to Medicare while offering a private insurance option, automatically enrolling individuals who do not have access to other coverage and providing guaranteed benefits, including primary and preventive care, hospital services, and prescription drug coverage. NBCC believes that there must be shared financial responsibility and that no individual should be denied coverage due to an inability to pay.

PRIORITY #2:
Access to Affordable and Effective Therapies:  NBCC supports policies that address systemic deficiencies in the law, regulation, and science policy that result in the approval of drugs that do not significantly extend or save lives and whose prices are not based on value or effectiveness.

PRIORITY #3:
Food & Drug Administration Reform: NBCC supports a drug approval system that prioritizes approving drugs with clinically meaningful benefits for patients. NBCC seeks to address systemic deficiencies in FDA regulation and the drug development process, including reforms to the accelerated approval pathway and the use of unvalidated surrogate endpoints.

PRIORITY #4:
Ensure the Participation of Educated Patient Advocates in Science Research and All Levels of Health Care Decision Making: NBCC continues to work to ensure that educated patient advocates who are trained and represent a constituency have a meaningful seat at the table in all levels of health care decision-making, which affects their lives.

Patient advocates must:

  • Have a patient-led, patient-centered organization with a patient constituency to which they are responsible and accountable;
  • Have been personally affected by the disease; and
  • Be knowledgeable, trained, prepared, and confident in their ability to participate in the decision-making process of science and medicine.