SHARE Included in White House Breast Cancer Awareness Event

By Communications

From What's Happening at SHARE Blog

SHARE was thrilled to be included in this year's Breast Cancer Awareness event at the White House. Michelle Obama and Jill Biden invited a group of legislators, breast cancer survivors and advocates to the Jacqueline Kennedy flower garden on October 23rd for a program about breast cancer survivors' need for health care reform.

Ivis Sampayo, LatinaSHARE Director, and Barbara Krauser, SHARE's Hotline Director, attended with 18 other survivors and advocates from the National Breast Cancer Coalition. Ivis got to talk face to face with Michelle. To see a video of the event, visit the White House blog (click here and when you get to the page, scroll down to see another photo of Ivis and Michelle!)

After Dr. Jill Biden introduced the program, three survivor advocates described their often-unsuccessful struggles to obtain health insurance after they had been treated for breast cancer. 

As Michelle Obama emphasized in her speech, it's not only women without health insurance who face huge obstacles to getting treated for cancer. Many women with insurance have to pay huge out-of-pocket costs or face annual or lifetime caps. Then they are routinely denied insurance because they have had cancer, even if treatment was successful. This needs to change!

 

If you want to learn how the various health care reform proposals will affect people with breast or ovarian cancer, we'd like to invite you to a public discussion on December 3rd. SHARE is bringing together a group of prominent advocates and legislators.

If a bill has passed, they will talk about how it will impact people with these diseases. If a bill has not yet passed, our speakers will update us on the status of the legislation and on what is getting in the way of health care reform. Join us! (click here for more information about the program)

Posted October 26, 2009.

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