Government Healthcare Advisors Need More Funding Not Less

I am your constituent and I just learned that there is a new test that can detect colon cancer very early so it can be treated successfully and lives can be saved. 53,000 of us die every year from it. The process for making sure that insurance plans cover it is slow and cumbersome and many in Congress want to defund it. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force do not have sufficient funding and staff to review new medicines and treatments to make those recommendations that save lives. Look, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is pretty much volunteer and only meets 3 times a year and they only get $11 million a year - they need way more funding so that more scientists and doctors can make the recommendations we need to save lives. I want you to make sure that funding for these two groups, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, is increased so that more lives are saved, not decreased so that more lives are lost. Thank you.