Greetings. This is a blog about sausagemaking, as they sometimes call lawmaking.  It's actually about a particular sausage: bipartisan New York Bill S6769/A9586 (Breast Density Disclosure and Insurance) which is in the process of being both made and unmade in Albany. It's a bipartisan bill requiring that women with dense breasts be notified by mammographers that their breasts are difficult to read by mammogram, and that they should discuss additional screening options with their doctors. Right now, women with dense breasts are not informed that they are in danger of misdiagnosis. Women like Joann Pushkin, whose cancer grew for five years undetected by mammogram.

A similar law that passed in Connecticut has doubled the detection rate for women with dense breasts who received sonogram screening. So we know this bill will save lives of New York women.

In its current incarnation, the joint senate/assembly bill calls for insurance coverage for sonograms as a follow-up screening tool for women with dense breasts. (Health insurers are trying to amputate this part of the bill before it leaves committee. I will go into more detail in a subsequent post.)

The bill has broad bipartisan support. If it comes to a vote, it is certain to pass.

If. 

The bill may never make it to the assembly floor. There is less than a month left in the legislative session, and it's still stuck in committee, where lobbyists and legislators are quibbling over the language of the bill. Among them are people who would like to kill this bill without leaving fingerprints. They can do it by running out the clock. With all the procedural hurdles this sausage has to go through, it may not make it to the assembly floor. That's why I started this blog. This sausage can only be cured with some sunlight.

Right now the joint bill is stuck in Assemblyman Joe Morelle's office (he's the assembly insurance chair) and Senator James L. Seward's office (he's the state senate insurance chair). When will it leave Morelle's committee? Will it leave? Time is of the essence.

There are some heroines/heroes in this story: Republican State Senator James Flanagan (Senate sponsor), Democratic Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffee (Assembly sponsor) and their many colleagues from both sides of the aisle who have signed on as co-sponsors of this bill. Also, JoAnn Pushkin, the tireless driving force behind the New York bill. Like many of the advocates behind this bill (including myself), JoAnn is fighting for this bill's survival even as she fights for her own survival.

But there are villains in this story too. At the end of the month, we'll know who the biggest villain is. The winner will get the "boob of the month" award from this blog.

In the meantime, I have a lot to fill you in on.  So stay tuned.

p.s. New Yorkers, call your state senator and your assembly member and tell them to support the bill and that you want to see this bill pass this session. Find your state senator here and your assembly member here.