Pennsylvania and Colon Cancer Screening Law

Pennsylvania Law currently does not have any mandate with insurance companies on colon cancer screening doing business in the Commonwealth. In the last two year session of the General Assembly, Senate Bill 635 expired. Senator Robert Tomlinson reintroduced the bill as Senate Bill 146 as of yet the web site has not caught up to view. This blogger obtained a copy of the new bill. It is the exact same as SB635 with the exception of sponsors. In the last session the bill had 30 sponsors. The number of sponsors is between 25 and 30 due to changing committees and possible conflicts. The Central Susquehanna Valley Colon Cancer task force was OK with this.

On January 31st, 2007 the Legislative and Finance Committee, a joint committee of the PA General Assembly, held a hearing on the study that was commissioned by the assembly. You could read all 58 pages here. The next step is to move this bill out of committee and into debate on the Senate floor. The Senate currently has Senate Bill 246, Clean Air Act, moved to the second reading. With governor having an ambitious insurance agenda in the second term and the general assembly willing to listen, this bill has a lot support. In the study, it was noted that Pennsylvania has one of the highest incidences of colorectal cancer in the country with almost half of the cases proving fatal. You can also look at the statistics on the PA Department of Health website, here. What the study does prove is 90% of the cases fall in the proposed law's screening guidelines for screening and PA has the capacity to handle additional screening. The numbers that the Senate Committee on banking and insurance should be concerned about is early screening equals 100 percent cure.

With the American Cancer society's Daffodil Days coming in March. Efforts should be made to lobby Senator Don White who has assumed the banking and insurance chair from Senator Gibson Armstrong who now heads up the appropriation committee. Armstrong's office did a good job stonewalling movement on this bill while he was chairman. One of the excuses given to the Central Susquehanna Coalition was that the law would affect insurance surpluses. Senator White is on record of sponsoring Senate Bill 635 in the last session. Hopefully, he hasn't changed his mind. Here is Rep. Phyllis Mundy's op-ed here questioning what Northeastern Blue Cross was going to do with 175 million dollars. This only one of a few Blue Cross providers in the Commonwealth. Does this help provide more coverage?

With the country's sixth most populous state, PA does not have any colorectal screening law. Even Arkansas, has screening and here is the story behind the law.