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INVESTMENT IN WOMEN'S HEALTH ACT OF 1999 -- HON. NEIL ABERCROMBIE (Extensions
of Remarks - March 04, 1999)
[Page: E355] GPO's PDF
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HON. NEIL ABERCROMBIE
OF HAWAII
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1999
- Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to re-introduce the Investment
in Women's Health Act. I am re-introducing this bill with Congresswoman Mary
Bono and the support of the National Cervical Cancer Coalition, the College of
American Pathologists, and the American Society of Clinical
Pathologists.
- Last year, Dr. James Navin from Straub Hospital visited my office to alert
me to a very serious inequity in the pap smear reimbursement rate in
Hawaii. Health insurers in Hawaii had apparently taken a cue from the Health
Care Financing Administration (HCFA) and lowered their pap smear reimbursement rate. Under
this lower rate, the local laboratories would lose a significant amount of
money on each screening. In fact, the reimbursement rate was low enough to
force the laboratories to consider getting out of the business completely.
Fortunately, the laboratories were able to convince the health insurers of the
need for increased reimbursement. The laboratories were then compensated with
a break even reimbursement rate for the pap smears.
- I soon found out that the low reimbursement rate is not only a problem in
Hawaii, but across the entire United States. The low rate of Medicare reimbursement for pap smears has an impact on the rates
paid by third party payers who peg their payments on what the government
pays.
- To address the deficiency, I introduced legislation last year to raise
HCFA's reimbursement rate for pap smears. Due to wide spread
support, progress on this issue was made with the inclusion of report language
in the Omnibus bill for fiscal year 1999 urging HCFA to use its existing
statutory authority to raise the reimbursement rate by administrative
action.
- Unfortunately, the reimbursement rate has not increased and the time table
for any change is unclear. In order to rectify this situation, my legislation
defines the date for an increase in the pap smear reimbursement rate and sets
the rate at the national average for production costs. For women in Hawaii and
the rest of the nation, this means we can assure their access to reliable and
timely pap smear
results.
- Everyone knows that pap
smears save lives. With annual screening, the chance of developing cervical
cancer can be reduced to less than 1%. Over the last 40 years, the incidence
of invasive cervical cancer has decreased significantly due to early detection
efforts. Still, an estimated 13,700 new cases of invasive cervical cancer will
be diagnosed in 1998, and 4,900 women will die of the disease. Screening for
cervical cancer allows doctors to catch the disease in its early stages and
save a life. A 70 percent decline in deaths due to cervical cancer in the last
50 years can be directly attributed to pap smears.