All women in U.S. should have right to quality health care, breast cancer screenings

Oct 19 2006

All women in the U.S. should have access to regular mammograms, and "none should be condemned by lack of funds to the painful death of breast cancer," the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a Chicago Sun-Times columnist, writes in a Sun-Times opinion piece.

The U.S. should invest in "aggressive" breast cancer prevention programs, which would "help keep people healthier [and] save taxpayers' money," Jackson writes.

According to Jackson, a woman in the U.S. has a one in eight chance of developing breast cancer during her lifetime, and 200,000 women will be diagnosed with the disease this year.

More than 40,000 women will die from breast cancer this year, and, "[n]ot surprisingly, the death rate is far higher" among women with no insurance and lower incomes, who often are unable to afford regular mammograms, Jackson writes.

The "U.S. health care system is an open scandal" because if "you have wealth, the best medicine in the world is available to you," but if "you are poor, or increasingly a middle- or low-income family, too often you will lack insurance or be vastly underinsured," Jackson writes, adding that such groups often "forgo costly tests and let illnesses fester until they become debilitating."

Although various states are starting to address the issue, there has been little progress at the national level, Jackson writes, concluding, "Too many women are discovering the costs of that default" (Jackson, Chicago Sun-Times, 10/17).