An early-detection blood test, if covered by Medicare, could save money and lives.
An early-detection blood test, if covered by Medicare, could save money and lives.
D uring the more than two decades I served in the U.S. House of Representatives, much of that as chair of the GOP Doctors Caucus, it always frustrated me that Medicare, Medicaid, and other public health programs spend tens of billions of dollars treating the symptoms of disease when we could spend less money, save more lives, and have a healthier population by investing in preventing those diseases from progressing.
Take cancer, for example.
The National Cancer Institute projects that Medicare will pay $221 billion annually by 2030 for cancer-related medical care, the vast majority of which is devoted to intensive care in the final year of a cancer patient’s life. This should prompt us to ask: What if we could prevent more cancers from reaching the advanced stages where treatment is far more expensive and less likely to be successful?
Medical science is making that an achievable reality. Advances in genomic research and machine learning have yielded tests that, with a simple blood draw, can diagnose dozens of types of cancer at once. A recent trial with 25,000 patients demonstrated incredible promise, with a seven-fold increase in the number of cancers detected when the test was used alongside current recommended screenings. False positives occurred less than 1 percent of the time, and the majority of cancers detected were stage I or II.
This is an innovation of incalculable importance. Until now, physicians like me could refer a patient for a mammogram or a colonoscopy, which could detect just one type of cancer from a specialized screening. With this breakthrough, we can administer a blood draw and follow up to learn if our patient has one of any number of cancer types, enabling more effective treatment.
To understand how significant this is, realize that roughly seven of every ten cancer deaths come from a type of the disease for which we aren’t screening. We currently have access to screenings for only five cancers — breast, cervical, colorectal, prostate, and lung cancer caused by smoking. For ovarian, stomach, kidney, esophageal, and so many other cancers, we haven’t had the early detection tools to find these diseases.
Until now.
With these blood tests, we can detect more cancers at highly treatable stages. When treatment is less invasive, it is often less costly and imposes less of a burden on patients’ lives.
Now that we have the science, the key is to make it accessible for those who need it most. That is where Congress comes in.
More than half of all cancer diagnoses occur among people age 65 and older, making Medicare access to these tools essential. Unfortunately, the quirky laws governing Medicare do not allow for that. But that could soon change. Last week, the House passed the Nancy Gardner Sewell Medicare Multi-Cancer Early Detection Screening Coverage Act, which will help prevent patients from experiencing years-long treatment delays.
It’s the most-supported bill in this Congress — out of more than 7,000 filed in the House since January 2025 — and one I was proud to support during my time in Congress. The bill is designed (similar to the policies Congress previously passed for colon cancer screenings) to allow FDA-approved, blood-based cancer screenings to be covered by Medicare. While bipartisan agreement on health care is rare, support for this bill is overwhelming because so many of my former colleagues understand what an extraordinary opportunity this policy presents.
The proposal, which has received the support of more than 400 members of Congress — as well as hundreds of physicians, patient groups, and other experts across the country — would cut through red tape and create a pathway for Medicare to cover these new tests once they are approved by the FDA.
I applaud my former colleagues in the House for passing the bill and look forward to its consideration in the Senate. If passed, it would save lives and taxpayer dollars and also represent an important turning point in government policymaking. It’s time to invest in disease prevention and keep people healthy, instead of simply trying to ease their distress as their illnesses progress.