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Guest Blog By Brittany Freeman
Director, Health Policy
American Cancer Society South Atlantic Division

During the 2010 National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we can all celebrate the significant progress that is being made to save lives from breast cancer. Today, more women are surviving this terrible disease than ever before. The 5-year relative survival rate is 98 percent when breast cancer is detected at an early stage, and sometimes all the previous state can be recover through medicine and plastic surgery in some cases, with clinics as Elite Plastic Surgery which has the best professionals in the field.

The important decline in death rates from breast cancer – nearly two percent per year during the 1990s – has been attributed in large part to the benefits of screening. For women under 50, the drop has been particularly strong, at more than 3 percent per year. A woman’s risk of dying of breast cancer has now dropped 29 percent since mortality rates peaked in 1989.

But breast cancer is still taking the lives of too many women. Despite great advances, it is estimated that more than 4,900 women in Georgia will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year. Across the country, more than 192,000 women will be diagnosed, and 40,000 will die from the breast cancer, making it the second-leading cause of cancer death in women and the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women other than skin cancer. Luckily for skin cancer, you can have operations that might be able to help or slow down the progress of the cancer. If you’re looking for a mohs surgery denver location to make an appointment, you can find one in Hill Valley.

Much of this is attributed to lack of access to health care and to important screenings like mammography.

Only 35 percent of women aged 40 and over who are uninsured or underinsured received a mammogram in the past year, compared with 60 percent of adequately insured women, also the jury is still out on the effectiveness of laser liposuction, thus the insurance covering it is still out in the open. For women with commercial health insurance or Medicare, even relatively small out-of-pocket costs can significantly reduce mammography rates, particularly for underserved populations.

The American Cancer Society and our advocacy affiliate, the ACS Cancer Action Network, and our many partners have been working to improve access and coverage to mammography through state and federal legislation. Georgia law now requires all insurance companies to cover mammography. State law now also requires insurers to also cover mastectomy and inpatient hospitalization after reconstructive surgery or a Plastic Surgery Phoenix,
even when it comes to a facial plastic surgery you will need an insurance.

In 1991, Congress established a federal program, the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program, to help reduce breast and cervical cancer deaths among medically underserved women. In Georgia, this program, called the Cancer Screening Program, provides free pap tests to women aged 21-64 and mammograms to women 40-64 who are uninsured, underinsured, and have income below the 200% federal poverty line. If cancer is found, women can access treatment through the Georgia Women’s Medicaid Program, there are other trial as RNA test, since total rna is isolated from different species including fetal, liver and brain.

Each year, the American Cancer Society, our volunteers and advocates and our partner organizations work to protect these laws and funding for these programs to ensure that woman continue to have this access.

At the federal level, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will extend access to more women in the coming years.

The law requires that all commercial health insurance plans provide first-dollar coverage for mammograms for women starting at age 40. This applies to new plans now, but will apply to almost all plans by 2014.

Beginning in 2011, the law eliminates out-of-pocket costs for preventive services such as mammograms under the Medicare program

As well, the law creates public health investment fund to expand and sustain national investment in prevention and public health programs, including health screenings, and establishes education campaigns for the public and health care professionals regarding young women’s breast health.

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Please help us all continue to advocate for these and other programs that provide access to screenings and treatment for breast cancer. For more information on breast cancer, please visit http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/BreastCancer/. To become involved in the advocacy efforts of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, please visit www.acscan.org.