Friday, Feb. 28, 2020 | 2 a.m.
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When I was elected to the Nevada Assembly in 2018, I made it my mission to protect Nevadans with pre-existing conditions, expand access to preventive health care and stand up to the insurance companies who would deny care for my neighbors. For me, that agenda was more than good policy. It was, and remains, personal.
I am a breast cancer survivor. In 2004, I was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer, the fastest-moving cancer. A mammogram the previous year failed to detect a cancer that later required a partial removal of one of my breasts and 10 lymph nodes. My doctor put me on a treatment schedule of double chemotherapy every other week for four months, and radiation treatment every day for two months. After those initial therapies, I went back every two months for checkups for the next two years, then checkups every six months until the fifth year. And every year, I still get annual checkups.
My doctor saved my life, and I have been cancer-free for 15 years. But while the physical threat of cancer is, I hope, behind me, like millions of other Americans, I will always be labeled by insurance companies as a person with a pre-existing condition. So this is a personal issue for me and for anyone with pre-existing conditions.
After my diagnosis, my husband and I survived not just cancer but, like millions of other Americans, we were hit hard by the economic downturn. For a while, I was covered through medical insurance offered by my employer, but when I was laid off, I was forced to turn to the Affordable Care Act for coverage. We’re back on our feet, but the threat of medical (and too often, financial) disaster is always top of mind.
Today, the Affordable Care Act is under attack by Republicans in Washington, D.C. — in the courts and in Congress. President Donald Trump made that very clear in his recent State of the Union address. That’s why it was especially important for the Nevada Legislature to pass and for Gov. Steve Sisolak to sign Assembly Bill 170, which protects Nevadans with pre-existing conditions, so patients are covered even if the Affordable Care Act were to be killed.
This was an important accomplishment putting us on the road to making more progress for Nevada families, but our work is not done.
Among my priorities and those in our female-majority Legislature, we need to do more to protect patients, lower the cost of prescription drugs and expand access to high-quality care, and we must continue to protect women’s health. Working together, we can make Nevada a safer, healthier state for all of us.
Connie Munk is an assemblywoman representing District 4 in Clark County.
