NC Medicaid Enrollment Information
Medicaid expanded in North Carolina on December 1!
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Medicaid and Cancer
May 28, 2025
This letter was initially published in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier.
If you qualify for Medicaid, you’re one cancer diagnosis from financial hardship. Medicaid is health care and cancer care for 677,000 low-income Iowans, so I can’t understand why Rep. Ashley Hinson is talking about cutting Medicaid. Our state’s cancer rates are the fastest rising, and with this crisis, health coverage is so important.
I know this on a personal level as an eight-year breast cancer survivor. Diagnosed at just 39 with two young children, the path through 16 rounds of chemotherapy and a double mastectomy was hard enough – even with exceptional care at UIHC, health insurance, and an incredible support system.
While I try to see both sides of policy discussions, I do not see how these cuts benefit Iowans. Access to Medicaid is one of our best tools in the fight against cancer. It increases insurance coverage rates, increases rates of early diagnoses when cancer is more treatable, and improves overall survival rates. There is simply no way Hinson can cut over $715 billion from Medicaid without cutting critical health care services for millions of cancer patients, including Iowans.
Traci McCausland, volunteer, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network
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