WASHINGTON, DC Feb 2, 2015 The president 's fiscal year 2016 budget sets an ambitious course for the national effort to prevent and treat life-threatening diseases such as cancer. The proposed three percent increase in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) would begin to restore scarce resources after years of appropriations that have not kept up with the growing costs of medical research.
The president 's Precision Medicine Initiative has enormous potential to hasten the discovery of lifesaving early detection tools and therapies that are unique to each patient. The budget also includes funding for drug monitoring programs, a critical step to ensuring that abuse and misuse of prescription drugs can be addressed in a balanced way that does not harm patient access to medications.
The budget proposal once again includes a 94-cent increase in the federal cigarette tax that would in part pay for a five-year extension of the Children 's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). There has been past bipartisan congressional support for increasing the federal tobacco tax to pay for this important program that guarantees access to quality care for uninsured children across the country. The tax has the added benefit ofæ discouraging kids from smoking, reducing long-term health care costs and saving lives. ACS CAN estimates that nearly doubling the federal cigarette tax would prevent an estimated 444,000 children from premature death, reduce the number of adult smokers by 2.6 million over 10 years and lower health care costs by $52 billion.
The proposed funding cuts for important cancer control programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are short-sighted. Protections in the Affordable Care Act are improving access to care for many cancer patients and survivors, but screening programs such as the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program which the president 's budget would cut by more than 20 percent - remain essential gateways to lifesaving care for millions of people nationwide, especially those in states that have not accepted federal dollars to increase access to Medicaid coverage.
To eliminate cancer as a public health burden, we must ensure that all Americans have access to proven preventive care and that our country 's scientists have the robust and sustained funds they need to make the next generation of groundbreaking discoveries.æ ACS CAN calls on Congress to make cancer a top priority by dedicating robust resources for research and prevention in the FY16 budget.
ACS CAN, the nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy affiliate of the American Cancer Society, supports evidence-based policy and legislative solutions designed to eliminate cancer as a major health problem.æ ACS CAN works to encourage elected officials and candidates to make cancer a top national priority. ACS CAN gives ordinary people extraordinary power to fight cancer with the training and tools they need to make their voices heard. For more information, visit www.fightcancer.org.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Alissa Crispino or Steven Weiss
American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network
Phone: (202) 661-5772 or (202) 661-5711
Email: [email protected] or [email protected]
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