Breast Cancer Awareness Signs

director tchen:good afternoon. andwelcome to the white house. my name is tina tchen, i am theexecutive director of the white house council onwomen and girls. and behalf of the white housecouncil on women and girls, i am delighted to welcome youhere not just to the white house, but in particular to thejacqueline kennedy garden where we are holding thisevent this -- today. as you all know, october isbreast cancer awareness month, and we are very honoredto observe it here today

at the white house. you can see we've got our pinkribbons on here, on our lapels, we have pink ribbonson our colonnade, and i'll give you a hint, takea look at the north portico tomorrow of the white house andkeep your eye out for more pink. we're especially pleased towelcome here breast cancer survivors and those whosefight with breast cancer still continues who havejoined us here today. and we have physicians andresearchers who dedicated their

careers to battling this diseaseand searching for a cure, and we also have the leadershipof some of the really important groups who are doing the workleading the battle against this disease around the country. i'd also like to acknowledgethe members of congress who are here with us today. we have senator amy klobuchar. (applause) we have congresswomanlois capps.

congresswoman kathy castor. congresswoman donna christensen. congresswoman rosa delauro. congressman bob etheridge. congresswoman nita lowey. congressman steve israel. congresswoman carolyn mccarthy. congresswoman sue myrick. congressman jerrold nadler.

congressman peterroskam, is he here? scheduled to come? and then finally in particular,i want to recognize congresswoman debbiewasserman schultz. she's here withher three children. congresswoman wasserman schultzis really somebody who has taken her own personal battlewith this disease, she's used it to raise awarenessand improve access to treatment for thousands of womenacross the country,

and she was an inspirationto us and an inspiration for this event today. so thank you very much. and i'd also like to recognizeleaders of two organizations that have been at the forefrontin raising support and awareness to attack breast cancer. first we have fran visco,president of the national breast cancer coalition. fran. and jenny luray who ispresident of the susan g.

koman for the cureadvocacy alliance. they were both very instrumentalin helping us put this event together, and we thank you bothfor all of your help and all you do for women every day. so breast cancer touches thelives of men and women from all walks of life. by the end of thisyear, nearly 200,000 new cases of invasive breastcancer will be diagnosed, and 40,000 people will die.

nearly all of us havebeen touched personally, either ourselves or peoplesomeone -- you know, someone close to us. for me, it's my aunt, my auntdorothy yang who was grandma dorothy to my children, and she-- she suffered breast cancer diagnosed at the age of 75. so we're here today to join withnbcc and koman and the many other groups that are here withus to call attention to the need to fight this disease duringbreast cancer awareness month,

and to stress the need forearly detection and prevention. but we're also here today tounderscore the urgent need for health insurance reform. because those who have -- thank you. those who are stricken withbreast cancer know all too well how broken our currenthealth insurance system is, because when youhave breast cancer, it can mean you are deniedcoverage because you have a

preexisting conditionas a survivor, it means if youcan get coverage, you are paying thousandsof dollars just to try to get that coverage. and if you can't have coverage,you're paying extraordinary sums of money out of your own pocketto pay for the care that you need. so today we're going to hearfrom some extraordinary women. we include first,dr. jill biden, and she'll be followed by threecourageous women who've traveled

from across the country to sharetheir personal stories with all of you and with the country. and i will note that we areweb streaming this live on whitehouse.gov, soanybody who is twittering, if you want to get that wordout, you can do that now. and then we'llhave, in conclusion, the first lady ofthe united states. so to start us off, it's reallymy distinct honor and privilege to introduce someone who hasbeen an educator, a leader,

she's been an out-spoken andtireless advocate against breast cancer, she took action herselfby founding the biden breast health initiativeover a decade ago, which has educated thousands ofyoung women about breast cancer and early detection, and she'scontinued that leadership here in washington, she's been aspeaker at the national breast cancer coalitionevent this spring, and she welcomed hundreds ofbreast cancer survivors and their families and supporters tothe vice president's home at the

national naval observatory tokick off the global race for the cure. so it's really my pleasureto welcome dr. jill biden. doctor biden:thank you, tina, forthat kind introduction. good afternoon, everyone. and on behalf of the presidentand the first lady, my husband, joe, and myself, it's a pleasureto welcome you to the white house. it's an incredible honor to behere today with so many breast cancer survivors. each of you has used your ownpersonal battle with this

disease to raise awareness andto improve access to treatment and education forthousands of other women. as you know, october is breastcancer awareness month. and hopefully a time for all ofus to reaffirm our commitment to the ongoing work of prevention,detection and treatment of this disease. all of us are here todaybecause the battle against breast cancer is personal. far too many of us have lost aloved one to this disease or seen a colleague or a friendendure painful treatments in a

long battle againstbreast cancer. i know i am here today forfriends whom i have lost, but i am also here for mydaughter, my daughters-in-law, my sisters, my niecesand my granddaughters, and so many women i love. i am here for a futurefree of breast cancer. my personal involvementstarted in 1993, as tina said, when four of my close friendswere diagnosed with breast cancer. i made a promise then to use mytraining as an educator to start

a dialogue with youngwomen about breast cancer, education and early detection. since that time, the bidenbreast health initiative has educated more than10,000 young women. i started the bb -- i started the biden breasthealth initiative because i was touched personally by breastcancer and i wanted to teach young women that screening andearly detection can save lives. michelle and i hope that each ofyou here will encourage every

woman you know and love todo what they can to prevent, detect and treat breast cancer. this administration is workinghard to ensure that our health care system will increaseaccess to preventive care, like mammograms. it seems so obvious thatfocusing on prevention, detection and early treatmentmakes much more sense than trying to play catch-up witha potentially deadly disease. we are fortunate enough today tohave three women who have come

to share their stories with us,stories that can illustrate better than any speecheswhy we need health reform. vernell branch ishere from virginia, she survived breastcancer seven years ago, only to be denied healthcare coverage for three years because of the cancer. during that time, vernell wasforced to pay out of pocket for her own medical care and didwhatever she could to avoid emergency roomsand clinic visits.

joni lownsdale ishere from illinois. like vernell, joni is a breastcancer survivor who has also struggled to find affordablequality health care. the problem is that as a resultof her history of cancer, she and her family spend $1,000a month on health insurance premiums and othermedical expenses, despite the fact that herparticular cancer presents a low risk for recurrence. venus gines is heretoday from texas.

venus discovered that she hada lump in her breast in 1992. she lost her health carecoverage when her employer was sold to another company,and since that time, she has struggled to obtainaffordable health care. while she battled this disease,she founded a nonprofit organization called latinahealth & wellness to provide free health education andscreening services to those who could not otherwise afford them. i want to thank you all,vernell, joni and venus,

for coming today and forsharing your personal stories. we know how hard andcourageously each of you has fought to beat cancer. having to battle for healthcare coverage on top of that is simply wrong. each of us -- each of us here today must dowhat we can to ensure that you and millions of women andfamilies like you have access to quality, affordable,comprehensive health insurance.

you deserve no less. so, venus, do you want tocome up and tell your story? ms. gines:buenos dias. it is truly an honor anda privilege to be here to tell you my story. thank you, first ladyobama and dr. biden, for your gracious invitation. as a latina breast cancersurvivor and advocate, i made it my mission to providelatinas with culturally-specific

health education to increasescreening and reduce mortality for breast and cervical cancer,not only in the united states, but globally. in 1992, a lump in my breast wasfound as i was being treated for an on-the-job accident as aflight attendant for twa. i had a mammogram,then a biopsy, then subsequently the bad news. just after 9/11, i, along withmany of my fellow furloughed employees, was suddenly withouta job and without health insurance.

after exhausting cobra, i soughtand was denied health insurance because of my previousbout with cancer. many of you in the audiencecan relate to the feeling of abandonment by your employer, byyour insurance company and by your government. i say government because thereare no laws to protect us from this type of discrimination. my experiences with our brokenhealth system and my sister's untimely death withcervical cancer due to

hpv prompted me to action. in 1997, i founded diade la mujer latina, which translates to day ofthe latin american woman, a nonprofit health andwellness organization. dia de la mujer latina healthfiestas provide culturally and linguistically-specific healtheducation and screening, follow-up care and patientnavigation to poor underserved and uninsured latinas. under our nonprofit, i wasable to get health insurance,

but it was pricey and limited. there was no protectionfor recurrence. according to the patientadvocate foundation, as many more americans losetheir medical insurance because of unemployment orpreexisting conditions, they are unable to accesslife-saving basic care and follow-up treatment. for many of our attendees, thisis their only way to get a breast cancer screening andpreventive care is at dia de la mujer.

paf documented a 146 percentincrease of cases from the previous year of patients whowere negatively affected by preexisting medical conditionand did not meet the insurance underwriting criteriasas a result of this. today, togetherwith our partners, which include local merchantsand community-based organizations, hospitals,researchers and clinics, as well as countlessdedicated volunteers, dia de la mujer latina healthfiestas have been celebrated in

over 30 cities across the unitedstates and in puerto rico, with a successfuloutreach rate of 55,000 women over the last 12 yearsfrom all races and ethnicities. we've empowered promotoras,our community health workers, to provide health outreach andsupport to the many people and the families inthese neighborhoods, and these folks are breaking thebarriers of medical mistrust and identifying resourcesfor care and support. with my upcoming 17 years ofbreast cancer survivorship and a

very, very busyschedule for 2010, my resolve is to save lives ofour medically uninsured and underinsured vulnerablepopulations one city, one community ata time. gracias. ms. lownsdale:good afternoon. thank you, mrs.obama and dr. biden, for allowing us to shareour stories with you today. my name is joni lownsdale, andi'm from rockford, illinois. when i first received my breastcancer diagnosis in the summer

of 2002, i never could haveimagined that it was the beginning of a journey thatwould bring me to the white house to share mystory with you today. i'm happy to say thatbecause of early detection, my health story has been one ofvictory rather than tragedy. but despite mygood health today, my diagnosis has left a targeton my back and has made getting insurance a verycostly proposition. at 39 years old, i was a healthymother of 7-year-old and

1-year-old daughters. i was a self-employed graphicartist with private health insurance that i had purchasedon the individual market. because i was young and i had nohistory of cancer in my family, i thought i was safe fromthat dreaded diagnosis. but i have since learned thatthere are many cancer patients who come from families withno history of the disease. in other words, it canstrike anyone, even you. at first i was sure i hadreceived a death sentence.

eventually i learned thatbecause we caught it early, i had only one very small tumor,smaller than the size of a pea. i received a lumpectomyfollowed by chemotherapy, radiation and five yearsof hormone therapy. at the end of thatcourse of treatment, my oncologist assured me thataccording to his computer projections and basedon my situation, i have a more than 94 percentchance of remaining cancer-free. very similar --

very similar to a woman whohas never had breast cancer. in 2005, with two and a halfyears of survivorship behind me and a clean bill of health, igot a letter from my insurer saying that my premiums weregoing to just about triple. i sat and cried. there was no wayi could afford it. so i went lookingfor another option. i was able to get onillinois' high risk pool, the state's so-called safetynet, the ichip program.

but my monthly premiumskept increasing. i now pay $600 a month for aplan that covers me alone. i've looked for other optionson the individual market, calling the american cancersociety's health insurance assistance service to see ifthey knew insurers who would cover previous cancer patients. even though i'm a survivor andi wasn't in active treatment, i learned that because ihad, past tense, cancer, i'm deemed uninsurablein the private market.

i will most likely becancer-free for the rest of my life, but having the word cancerwritten on my medical chart is enough to generate an automaticrejection from insurance coverage. thank you for inviting me heretoday to allow me to share my story, and thank you for raisingawareness of this important issue. i will continue to share mystory thanks to the american cancer society as we advocatetogether for comprehensive health reform that is adequateand affordable for all americans and does not discriminate basedon health status or history.

thank you very much. ms. branch:thank you, first ladyobama and dr. biden, for this opportunityto share my story. my name is vernell branch, andi'll proud to say that i am a 14-year breast cancer survivor. i was diagnosed in 1995 and wasfortunate to have good health insurance coverage throughmy husband's employer. that same year, i underwent amastectomy and began tamoxifen. shortly after my treatment, ibegan my work as an advocate for

the national breast cancercoalition and health care reform. since 1995, i have been withouta reocurrence of the disease. that sounds like apretty good story. a story that the best outcomeyou could hope for and hear when learning a family member or afriend is faced with breast cancer. well, as most -- as inmost aspects of life, it was not that simple. in the year 2000, after fiveyears without a reocurrence of breast cancer, my husband,calvin, lost his job, and,

in turn, health insurancecoverage for our family. he decided to open hisown consulting business, and elected to continue healthcoverage through cobra. we remained coveredfor about 18 months, the maximum time allowedfor this type of insurance. calvin and i began shoppingaround for a new insurance plan. once we found one that seemeda good fit, we applied. calvin then -- and my only sonof three that was still at home were approved in avery timely manner.

but coverage for me,on the other hand, was not approved immediately. so i -- coverage -- i wasasked then to submit my health records, and i suppliedthe information, did not hear back for abouta month -- about two months, i tried to find outwhat the hold-up was, but did not get astraight answer. a total of four months went byuntil i found out definitively i was denied insurance.

when i asked the insurancecompany representative point blank if i was denied coveragedue to my breast cancer diagnosis five years before, iwas met with a heavy silence. the best they could offer mewas a recommendation to find an employer who would offerme health coverage. i lived without insurancefor three years. during that time, i broke myfoot twice and had to visit the emergency room each time. any time i had a cold or neededtreatment for a common ailment,

i had to visit a walk-in clinic. all of these expenses had tobe paid for out of pocket. at one point while uninsured,i had a screening mammogram; the technician found asuspicious mass and recommended a biopsy to be sure that thecancer had not returned. the mass, thankfully, turnedout to be just scar tissue, but the fact remained i had topay full price out of pocket for this costly screeningand surgery, which turned out tobe a false alarm.

after three yearswithout coverage, my family and i moved fromcalifornia to virginia. we wanted to start over and lookfor new opportunities near where my husband and i both grewup and had family support. calvin and i were able to findwork and health coverage through his employer, but for threeyears i never knew if there would be a reoccurrence and iwould not be able to afford the care i needed, i lived infear that if cancer returned, i would not have insurance tohelp pay for treatment to enable

me to live a full life. today as a field coordinator andteam leader and advocate for the national breastcancer coalition, i will continue to push fortheir top priority and mine, access to qualityhealth care for all. doctor biden:thank you for sharingyour stories with us. you are an inspiration for thework we have ahead of us to ensure that all americans haveaccess to preventive care and quality health care insurance.

and we could not have a betteradvocate or leader on this issue than our first lady,michelle obama. it is my pleasure to welcomea woman who can speak most powerfully from her ownexperience as a mother, a daughter, a lawyer, and amedical center administration. please welcome my dear friend,our first lady, michelle obama. mrs. obama:thank you. good afternoon,everyone, and welcome. i am so thrilled you could joinus today as we mark national

breast cancer awareness monthright here at the white house. and i want to thank jill somuch for that kind introduction, as well as her phenomenal workthat she's done to educate young women about this disease. i think jill is one of thoseexamples of how one passionate advocate can reallymake a difference, and we are grateful to youfor your leadership and the successes that you'vehad in your work. and most of all, i am gratefulto you for your friendship,

as always. i also want to thank tina tchen,who many of you already know for her outstanding work asdirector of the office of public engagement. tina, thank you so much. and i want to take a moment-- yes, let's give tina -- i don't want to stepon your applause, tina. and i also want to take amoment to recognize all of the survivors and the advocates whoare here today who have worked so hard and for so long to raisemoney and raise awareness to

fight this disease, particularlyvernal, joni, and venus, for having the courage to sharetheir stories with us today. i mean, it's hard getting up andspeaking about good news, right, let alone to talk aboutsomething that is so personal to a crowd of strangers anda whole lot of cameras. (laughter) so -- but it's important forthem and for us to remind them that it's sharing these storiesthat really makes a difference. it takes the veiloff of this disease,

because it wasn't that long agothat people thought that breast cancer was something to beashamed of and to keep it a secret; something that youdidn't discuss in polite company. some people even wondered,if you can believe it or not, whether breast cancerwas contagious. and at the first fundraisinglunch hosted by the komen foundation, the description ofthe event was written in one paper as a "women'scancer event," because the word "breast" wasconsidered too risquã© to print.

but then, people likeyou, all of you here, started speaking out, includingtwo of my predecessors, first ladies bettyford and nancy reagan. they began speaking out. survivors and those who lovethem started organizing and advocating and lobbying formore money, for more research, and better treatmentfor this disease. and then folks like venus andjill started working to educate and empower people to promoteearly detection and make sure

that people were gettingthe care that they needed. and today, because of that work,the number of women getting regular mammograms hasdramatically increased, and the five-year survival ratewhen breast cancer is diagnosed in time is 98% -- and that's compared to 74% in the early 80s. and today, we spend $900 millionon breast cancer research, which is 30 times morethan what we spent in 1982. so we have come a long way. and you should all be proud ofwhat you've achieved to get us this far.

but what we all know is thatwe are not finished yet. we are not finished yet. we know we're not finished whennearly one in eight women is still diagnosed with breastcancer in their lifetime -- a total of one womanevery three minutes -- and nearly 2,000 men arediagnosed each year as well, and that's somethingwe don't often discuss. and we know we're not finished when 40,000 women a year still die from this disease.

that's one woman every 13minutes who's dying from this disease today. and we know we're not finished,especially not when we have a health care system in thiscountry that simply is not working for too many peoplewith breast cancer and too many people who are survivingwith breast cancer. it's a system that only adds tothe fear and stress that already comes with the disease. and i'm not just talkingabout women without insurance,

who face the terrifyingprospect, as you've heard, of having to pay the full costof their treatment on their own. i am talking about people inthis country who have insurance who have breast cancer --folks who all too often find themselves also paying outrageous out-of-pocket costs. according to a new reportreleased by the department of health and human services today,breast cancer patients with employer-sponsored insurancepaid an average of more than $6,200 in out-of-pocket costsover the course of a year.

and some wound up paying asmuch as $10,000 or $20,000, and 5% with private insurance paid more than $30,000 a year for their treatment. this is with insurance. these are peoplewho are blessed. and then there are those annuallifetime caps that insurance companies set, where onceyou go over that cap -- as many women do because someforms of breast cancer are so expensive to treat -- then that cap makes it impossible to pay a

penny more for that treatment. and one recent survey showedthat 10% of all cancer patients report hitting a capon their benefits, leaving them scrambling to findalternative insurance to figure out how to pay out of pocketfor the rest of their lifetime. and then there's what happenswhen you've gone through all the treatment and you'refinally in remission, which should be good news. you're finally in remissionand you're finally feeling like

yourself again. you feel whole and happy. but then, as you've heard,you're stuck, as joni said, with a target on your back forthe rest of your life with a "preexisting condition," whichmeans that insurance companies can deny you coverage or chargeyou higher rates for coverage -- sometimes much higher. that's exactly what happened tovernal, to joni, and to venus. these women weredenied insurance,

and now joni and venus are eachpaying very high premiums for their coverage. and as you've heard, venus'sinsurance won't even cover treatment if shehas a reoccurrence. so i know that a lot ofsurvivors like them are terrified. they are living in fear oflosing their jobs or changing jobs or even moving, becausethey're worried they won't be able to findaffordable insurance. and perhaps most heartbreakingof all is the fact that right

now, today in america, there arepeople in this country who have breast cancer butdon't even know it, because they can'tafford a mammogram. according to our new report, onein five women age 50 and above haven't gotten a mammogramin the past two years. and while that's better thanit was a few decades ago, it's nowhere near good enough. and this is not acceptable. this is not acceptablein this country.

this is something thatcould happen to any of us. and this is adisease, as we know, that affects not justthose diagnosed with it, and not just those who'vesurvived it and those who've lost their lives to it, but itis a disease that also affects those who love and know them -- which these days seems like almost every singleperson in this country. that's why it is so criticallyimportant that we finally reform our health care system that iscausing so much heartache for so

many people affectedby this disease. now is the time. fortunately, that's exactly whatthe plans being considered by congress right now would do. so just to be clear,under these plans, if you already haveinsurance that works for you, then you're all set. you can keep your insuranceand you can keep your doctors. the plans put in place somebasic rules of the road to

protect you from abuses andunfair practices by insurance companies. that would mean no more denyingcoverage to people like women we heard from today because ofso-called preexisting conditions like having survived cancer. because there's a belief thatif you've already fought cancer, you shouldn't have to also fightwith insurance companies to get the coverage that you need ata price that you can afford. these plans mean insurancecompanies will no longer be allowed to cap the amount ofcoverage that you can get,

and will limit how muchinsurance companies can charge you for out-of-pocket expenses,because in this country, getting sick shouldn'tmean going bankrupt. and finally, these plans willrequire insurance companies to cover basic preventativecare -- from routine checkups, to mammograms, to pap smears-- at no extra charge to you. and though i want to emphasizethat in the end, as we all know, it's our responsibility as womento also talk to our doctors about what screenings thatwe need and then make the

appointments to getthose screenings, even when it's inconvenientor maybe a little bit uncomfortable. it's something that we owe notjust to ourselves but to the people that love us. because we know the differencethat early detection makes. we know that if breastcancer is detected early, it's far easier to cure andmuch less costly to treat. so we can save money,we can save lives, and we can do right bythe people that we love.

so that's how healthinsurance reform will work. that's how it will help peoplewho have been diagnosed with breast cancer and thosewho've survived the disease. but first, we haveto get it passed. first we have to get it passed. but that's the hard part. we know that there are all sortsof myths and misconceptions out there, and we know there arefolks who will do anything they can to stop reform because,for whatever reason,

they want to keepthings the way they are. from where we stand now, itmight seem like an uphill battle. but fortunately, folks like youknow a little something about an uphill battle, right? you know a thing or two aboutovercoming long odds and rallying people toan important cause. now, let's remember that therewas a time when those affected by breast cancer never couldhave imagined all these pink ribbons that would one daygrace the white house, offices,

storefronts, lapels. i don't think they could haveimagined some hulking nfl player decked out in pinkcleats and pink gloves. (laughter and applause) i don't think they could haveimagined a day where so many people would wear jeansto raise money for a cure. i don't think they could haveimagined how many people would lace up their shoes to take partin walks and runs and races all across america.

and it is my hope that if wepass health insurance reform, then 20 or 30 yearsfrom now, just imagine, our daughters and ourgranddaughters won't be able to imagine a time when any womanin this country couldn't get a mammogram because shecouldn't afford it. i hope that our children andgrandchildren won't be able to imagine a time when anyone inthis country went bankrupt just because they had themisfortune of getting sick. and i hope that statistics likeone in eight and one every 13

minutes will beincomprehensible to our kids -- incomprehensible -- because ofall the strides that we've made and the work that we've done forthis cure and for this reform. and in the end, that's reallywhat health insurance reform is all about. it's not about us. it's about them. it's about the future. that is what we're fighting for.

that's what we have to remember. that's what this fight is about. and that's why we're so gratefulto all of you for the hard work and commitment andsacrifices that you've made. and we look forward to workingwith all of you in the weeks and months ahead. thank you so much.