Mr. Speaker, with regard to that age, 40 to 49, I am 45, and I think about the fact that I have aging parents. A woman that age has children. She is trying to make her career. She is trying to pay her bills. She is trying to do all these things, and then, boom, she is not well. She is now not able to go to work or make money. The consequences are devastating.
With respect to prevention, I asked a question to one of the witnesses. I said that I do not understand the recommendation. I asked whether it is a money thing, because that is the only thing I can ever find. I hear things like “Follow the money” and “It costs too much money to do the screening.” The witness talked about how much money we save; Cheryl White, a breast cancer survivor, said, “People talk about the harms of mammograms, but the only harm I can think of is the $75 cost of getting one.”
With regard to the money we would save, in terms of the prevention for women who otherwise would have to access medicine and not be able to go to work, and the families impacted, it does not make any sense. We are going to save economically. The impact would be far worse if we did not get early diagnosis.