Story of Change
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Public Policy & Advocacy News
The efforts of LymphomADVOCATES across the country bring us closer to our goal of eradicating this disease and ensuring access to high quality cancer care for every patient.
Below is a summary of policy issues of high priority to the Lymphoma Research Foundation (LRF) and its members, including research funding and access to quality health care. Learn more about each issue and how together we can affect change and grow support for those issues most important to the lymphoma community.
Congress Protects Patient Access to Radioimmunotherapy
July 16, 2008
On June 24, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act, which included an 18-month extension of existing payment rates for radioimmunotherapy (RIT), just days before the deadline that would have dramatically decreased payments to hospitals and physicians administering the valuable lymphoma therapy. The Senate passed the same version of the legislation on July 9, by a 69-30 margin.
President Bush vetoed the bill, however both the House of Representatives and the Senate voted on July 15 to override the President's veto of the legislation. (The House vote was 383 to 41 in support of the override, and the Senate vote was 70 to 26.) LRF advocates played an important role in encouraging legislators to support the Medicare bill and patient access to RIT. Learn more here.
National Institutes of Health: Funding Lifesaving Research
Federal investment in medical research in the United States through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has led to the development of diagnostic tools and therapies for a wide variety of chronic diseases, including lymphoma. We must urge Members of Congress to provide NIH with the funding it needs to help identify new treatments for lymphoma, and in turn affect the millions of patients who rely on these innovative therapies
. Learn more here.
National Cancer Institute: Turning Patients into Survivors
One of the almost 30 institutes which comprise NIH, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) requires substantial resources to continue the progress being made in the fight against lymphoma and other types of cancer. LRF supports increasing the NCI budget as means to protect our nation’s investment in cancer research. Learn more here.
New Opportunities for Blood Cancer Research: The Department of Defense
For the past eight years, LRF and the blood cancer community have proposed that Congress expand the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP), which is located in the Department of Defense, to include a dedicated blood cancer effort. Innovative research in the fields of breast and prostate cancer, as well as chronic myelogenous leukemia, has been conducted through this program in the past. LRF is again urging Congress to fund a full range of blood cancer research through the CDMRP. Learn more here.
Comprehensive Cancer Care
In a series of reports on the nation's cancer care system, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommended that a) cancer patients receive a plan of care that details the elements of active therapy and the components of symptom management, and b) cancer survivors receive a summary of their treatment that will help them move from active therapy to monitoring and follow-up after treatment. Recently, legislation has been proposed to ensure such coordinated cancer care in the United States. Learn more here.
Clinical Trials
Cancer patients who participate in clinical trials can play a more active role in their own health care, gain access to new treatments before they are widely available and help others by contributing to medical research. Unfortunately, many patients are unable to receive these innovative therapies because their health insurance company is unwilling or unable to cover the items and services provided in the clinical trial (like physician services and hospital stays) that are otherwise generally available to a qualified individual.
Legislation like the Access to Cancer Clinical Trials Act of 2007 would prohibit the denial of coverage for these so-called "routine patient costs" on the basis of an individual’s participation in a clinical trial. Learn more here.
Continue to visit the this page for continuing updates on these and other policy issues important to the lymphoma community.
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