Kansas lawmaker asks, 'Is it sexism?' after peers pull $75K for breast cancer screenings

Women working for the state of Kansas will have to continue to pay out of pocket for breast cancer screenings.

The pending state budget, Senate Bill 28, cuts a previous plan to spend $75,000 for breast cancer diagnostic coverage in the state employees' health insurance program.

The budget passed the Kansas House and the Senate on April 5, and Gov. Laura Kelly approved the budget Wednesday.

Why are breast cancer screenings needed?

Kansas and Nebraska American Cancer Society government relations director Megan Word said early detection and legislation that helps reduce the cost of screenings are important.

"Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the second-leading cause of cancer death in women," Word said in a written statement. "In Kansas 2,620 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and 370 will die from the disease.

"Although incidence rates have increased slightly over the past decade, death rates from breast cancer have been consistently declining over the last three decades, largely due to increased screening rates and improved treatment. Almost 100 percent of all individuals diagnosed with breast cancer at a local (early) stage are still alive five years later."

The amendment to provide screenings was added to a previous version of the budget House Bill 2689. This would allow $75,000 of the state budget to go toward insurance coverage for screenings.

"This is just a continuation of care," Rep. John Eplee, R- Atchison said during the March 19 House proceedings. "This is really, in my opinion, the standard of care, and we should cover it. We should create a test track for this to go forward and make this happen. If we don't do it now, we're going to do it at some point in time."

Eplee is a physician who has practiced family medicine for 42 years.

Lawmakers question intentions behind funding cut

When the budget was voted on April 5, representatives stated their disapproval

Rep. Linda Featherstone, D-Overland Park said she was unhappy with the cuts as breast cancer rates rise.

"Breast cancer rates (in Kansas) are 5.3% higher than the national average and have been climbing since 2014," Featherstone said. "The fact that we cannot agree that women's health should be a priority is appalling."

Rep. Henry Helgerson, D-Eastborough, said the Senate and the House shouldn't have gone back on funding screenings and noted it was done quietly.

"The idea that it was taken out after all of us debated it and made some decisions," Helgerson said. "We made a policy. And when I talked about the budget process that goes on in this, it also kills things quietly. That's something that shouldn't have been killed."

Featherstone said the act of taking the money for screenings out of the budget was sexist.

"I have seen people who have supported this bill openly and not openly, been abused and disrespected on many occasions and for that, I am deeply sorry because that is not how this place should run," Featherstone said. "$75,000, three-millionths of the budget, 0.000003, that's what was stripped for some reason.

"Was it politics, that special interest, that sexism, that hardness? Was it spite? This is a complete lack of regard for women's health care."

Rep. Blake Carpenter, R-Wichita, who worked on the budget bill, said he took offense to the sexism accusations.

"It was not out of spite," Carpenter said. "It was not sexism. And if you really know me, you would know that my grandmother is a breast cancer survivor. I have two aunts that are breast cancer survivors. So, I actually took personal offense to some of the comments that were made in regard to that."

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas lawmakers pull $75,000 in funding for breast cancer screenings