Michelle's Place Facebook Cause Bulletin Posted by Amy Grassi Watson at 3:42pm on July 14th, 2010
Join us on Facebook!  Search on Michelle's Place for our Fan page and our cause page is under Supporting Women with Breast Cancer.

If your family's budget is on the decline, do you eliminate food? No! That doesn't make sense.

Hmmm...On July 1st, the state of California eliminated a program - Every Woman Counts (apparently not every woman does). Through this program, low income, uninsured women 40 years old and older could receive free breast health services. This move has left 1.2 million women without access to potentially life-saving breast health services.

For the women over 50 and previously enrolled in the Every Woman Counts program, effective August 1st, they now qualify for routine breast cancer screening every TWO years. Yes, you read that correctly. That is up from what was previously one year. No new women need apply. Women 40-49, previously enrolled or not, get nothing. (Man, I hope breast cancer starts growing more slowly.)

These changes are definitely not in line with what we are seeing at Michelle's Place. We understand there is a state budget crisis. We do not understand the complete elimination of a program. We do not understand putting women's lives on the line. We will continue to fight to help detect breast cancer at its earliest because we know that this is when cure rates are the highest...and dare we say, treatment is least expensive (gasp!). It's true! This is where the lack of common sense comes in...screening programs have an economic value. Treatment costs are considerably lower when breast cancer is caught in earlier stages.

Another perspective on this...who do you think of when you read "uninsured"? In today's economy, this could be your daughter, sister, mother, aunt, niece, grandmother, or friend. There are many women impacted by the changing job market and health insurance is not always affordable. Life comes at us fast and things do not always go as planned.

We are going to start highlighting some of our amazing survivors at Michelle's Place over the coming weeks. These are amazing women and we invite you to take a look at their stories on our website at www.michellesplace.org/survivor-stories. Many of our survivors as well as many of the women we are serving today are not even 40 years old! Each one is strong and beautiful and we are thankful they have taken the time to share their journey with us.

If you have never visited our website, please take a moment to see what we are all about www.michellesplace.org. We offer a wide range of services to women and their families. We expect the need for our services to continue to grow with the decisions being made at the state level. We have a mission at Michelle's Place and we are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization (Tax ID 33-0951216). Every dollar counts.

Thank you for your continued support,
Michelle's Place