90% of voters polled agree health insurers should cover all recommended breast imaging
Voters overwhelmingly agree that health insurers should cover all recommended breast imaging beyond just screening mammograms, according to new polling data shared Thursday.
About 90% of respondents expressed support for the bipartisan Access to Breast Cancer Diagnosis Act. Introduced in the U.S. House last April, the bill would require private insurers to cover supplemental imaging exams such as ultrasound and MRI, often needed when initial imaging results are inconclusive.
The Alliance for Breast Cancer Policy—a coalition of 29 advocacy organizations launched by Susan G. Komen—commissioned the national survey. It included 1,000 Republican primary voters, with data collected via phone and text interviews in July and August.
"Patients shouldn't have to choose between financial stability and lifesaving care. The ABCD Act fills a critical gap in early detection, and these findings reinforce why eliminating imaging costs is essential,” Molly Guthrie, VP of policy and advocacy for Komen, a breast cancer advocacy organization, said in a statement Oct. 9.
Voters strongly support no-cost coverage for imaging, the poll found, particularly when additional scans are needed after a patient receives suspicious or inconclusive initial results (94%). Same for when supplemental imaging such as MRI and ultrasound is recommended for high-risk patients (92%). More than 53% of those polled said they’d be more likely to vote for a member of Congress who supports the ABCD Act, the coalition noted.
The poll comes as this and similar proposals have faced challenges securing Republican backing, advocates reported last year. A similar legislation, the Find It Early Act, has garnered widespread, bipartisan support in the House, but has had difficulty finding a GOP co-sponsor in the Senate. The resistance, experts have noted, is often rooted in a broader debate about federal versus state mandates and the spending of federal dollars on such concerns.
Currently, at least 30 states have now taken action to eliminate patient cost sharing for supplemental imaging, “with little to no impact on insurance premiums,” the coalition notes. Other members of the Alliance for Breast Cancer Policy include the Society of Breast Imaging, the American Cancer Society, DenseBreast-Info.org, Novartis, and the NAACP. You can find more about the survey and its methodology here.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.