Legislative

Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed the Lymphedema Treatment Act. This bill will improve coverage for medical compression supplies necessary for patients suffering from lymphedema. Currently, Medicare does not cover one of the most critical therapeutic treatments for lymphedema, an incurable disease affecting 3 million Americans. Lymphedema produces an accumulation of fluid and swelling in the extremities of the body caused by damage to the lymphatic system, most commonly caused

Every woman has her own unique breast cancer journey. Cheryl’s story is no different. Diagnosed in 2004 with early stage breast cancer on the right side, she underwent a lumpectomy, had radiation treatments, and was in remission for several years. However, in 2015, Cheryl was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer on the right side, which happens to be the same side where she had her mastectomy. During the course of chemo treatments, she kept getting infections at the incision site. The infections

Time is a precious commodity that you cannot buy or get back. Sometimes it’s time to act and sometimes it’s time to be patient. Renee Firato’s cancer journey is all about time, taking your time, the timing of surgeries, and the timing of life events. As she was just about to graduate from high school, Renee had her wisdom teeth removed and did not recover well, which ended up leading to the discovery of acute myelogenous leukemia. Within one week of getting her port placed on

May 11, 2021 WASHINGTON — U.S. Representatives Judy Chu (CA-27) and Jackie Walorski (IN-2) today re-introduced legislation to ensure breast cancer patients and survivors who have experienced a mastectomy are able to access custom breast prosthetics under Medicare. The Breast Cancer Patient Equity Act would provide coverage for custom fabricated breast prostheses, the only human body part not currently covered by Medicare, to the more than 144,000 women who undergo mastectomies annually. “Breast

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-FL and Rep. Susan Brooks, R-IN have teamed up to propose the reauthorization of the Breast Cancer Education and Awareness Requires Learning Young (EARLY) Act, which was first passed in 2010. The EARLY Act focuses on education and outreach run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) focusing on the risks young women and women of certain ethnic or racial backgrounds face from breast cancer.  “Reauthorizing the EARLY Act means that we will

The Let Her Decide Team is excited to announce a new advocacy tool, the Let Her Decide Toolkit. We know that it takes time to put together informational resources to display in your store and hand out to your customers.  You can now purchase the Let Her Decide Toolkit for $30 that contains the following items: 1 11x17 foam core sign 60 counter cards with one master copy for additional to be printed 25 copies of the infographic that explains why this campaign is so important 2 selfie

This month, the Let Her Decide campaign is focused on growing our audience on Facebook. The bigger the audience, the more reach we have and the more impactful our message will be. In two days alone, we were able to gain over 500 likes. How did we do it? What’s our secret sauce? It’s all about the people you already know and your own social network! Your social network already knows what you do for a living, so why not ask them to support your cause? To increase our following, we

This week, Nikki Jensen and Tom Powers flew to Washington, D.C. to visit 33 offices to advocate for the Breast Cancer Patient Equity Act and to ask for legislators to sign on to support the legislation. This visit is the first since S. 562 and H.R. 1370 were introduced in March. Keeping our legislation in front of key committee members is incredibly important. Meeting with their staff allows us to explain the issue and let them know that constituents in their districts are asking for

The Essentially Women membership has two pieces of federal legislation already moving in Congress, the Breast Cancer Patient Equity Act and the Lymphedema Treatment Act. The Lymphedema Treatment Act is being spearheaded by the Lymphedema Treatment Act Organization.  Medicare does not recognize and acknowledge the role compression plays in the treatment of lymphedema. If passed, this legislation will provide Medicare coverage for all forms of compression, including bandaging supplies,

Last week, I had the opportunity to participate in some advocacy training; I learned a lot! (And, that might be the biggest understatement of the year!) The recurring theme of this workshop was "One person can make a difference!" And, that is so true, especially with the Make Me Whole Again campaign.  So far, we have 625 letters sent to members of Congress; we have reached 146 lawmakers across 45 states. Thus far, we have three officially signed onto H.R. 6980. All three of these lawmakers signed