State legislation often has a more personal impact on our day to day lives than federal legislation. The first step to being engaged in our state government is knowing who your representatives are. Click here and enter your address in the “Find My Legislators” box to find your state representatives. Remember – they are in Madison to represent YOUR best interests and your values, but they can’t do that without hearing from their constituents. It is always a good practice to thank your representatives when they support policy that is a important to you!
Current State Policy Issues
Breast screening legislation and continued advocacy for Wisconsin’s Well Woman Program have been selected as WBCC’s top state policy priorities. (click here to read more about WBCC’s federal priorities).
Breast Density
Our top state priority is legislation related to insurance coverage for high risk women who have been diagnosed with dense breasts, or have been told they are at high risk due to family history/genetics. Dense breast tissue not only makes tumors harder to see on mammograms, but is a risk factor – in and of itself – for developing breast cancer. (More detail on this here).
In 2017, Wisconsin joined many other states in passing legislation that required health care facilities to notify a woman, after her mammogram, if she has dense breast tissue. The mandated notification also encourages women to follow up with their health care professional to discuss risk and the potential need for further screening.
Unfortunately, many insurers do not cover the cost of screenings beyond the initial annual mammogram. If a woman cannot afford the cost of additional, necessary testing, she may choose to forgo it entirely. This increases her risk for an undetected cancer to spread and become more lethal before her next annual mammogram.
Not covering additional, necessary tests causes a disparity in access to potentially lifesaving healthcare for the 40% of women in Wisconsin with dense breast tissue.
In the 2021 legislative session, Wisconsin State Senate Bill 413 and Assembly Bill 416 were introduced, however they did not advance to a vote and died when the legislature adjourned in March 2022.
In February 2023, Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara (R-Appleton) and Rep. Nate Gustafson (R-Neenah) held a press conference announcing a new bill.
Introduced in the State Senate with bipartisan support in March 2023, SB 121 would have required insurers to cover essential screenings for women who are at high risk for breast cancer due to dense breast tissue or family history/genetics. The bill had excellent bipartisan support already in the legislature and was also supported by a coalition of organizations including WBCC, Susan G Komen, American Cancer Society, Wisconsin Primary Health Care Association and more. Its counterpart AB 117 was introduced in the State Assembly on March 24.
In 2024, WBCC and our partners in the Early Detection Saves Lives Coalition ceased working for passage of the Breast Cancer Screening and Detection Bill (SB 121 / AB 117) due to harmful amendments to the bill. The bill did not get on the schedule for a vote in either the Senate or the Assembly and the session is essentially over, so the bill is dead. That means that we will be starting fresh when the new legislature is seated in January of 2025.
If you have been told you have dense breasts and have not been able to afford MRI or ultrasound screening, and if you are willing to share your story with YOUR state senator and assembly representative, you could help us! This is how the first bill came about in Wisconsin – an advocate, telling her story to her elected officials. Please contact us at admin@wibreastcancer.org if you would like to be involved.
Wisconsin Well Woman Program
The Wisconsin Well Woman Program (WWWP) is jointly funded by the state and the CDC, to provide free breast and cervical cancer screenings for women who are uninsured.
Background: Breast cancer and women’s health organizations across the state worked throughout 2015 to ask DHS to delay implementation of a new program model for the WWWP until all concerns had been met about the efficacy of the new model, to no avail. Our concerns have not been addressed regarding the availability of convenient, local access to care and service coordination. The new network of providers requires that many women drive a 100-mile round trip for breast and cervical cancer screenings. WBCC and our colleagues at the Wisconsin Alliance for Women’s Health and all three Wisconsin Susan G Komen affiliates called for legislators to get involved in ensuring that this critical program remains as successful as it had been for 20 years.
The Well Woman Program continues to operate at a deficit in coordinators and providers as a result of the 2015 contraction. As outlined in a recent online study, the projected insurance uptake in the program’s target population, as a result of access to marketplace policies via the Affordable Care Act, does not appear to have materialized. Likewise, the state continues to refuse federal funding to increase our Medicaid program to 138% FPL (Federal Poverty Level), leaving many low-income women without access to critical preventive screenings. WBCC continues to educate legislators on the status of the WWWP and to advocate for the program’s success.