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And if you think back a year, part of what made this whole issue kind of explode in the zeitgeist was the way that people responded-

Mm-hmm

... to news about your efforts with this piece of legislation.

Would you remind people what the legislation is, first of all?

Certainly.

So this is a federal bill, and if passed, uh, for somebody who is under the age of 65 and living with metastatic breast cancer, once they get to the point that they're no longer working full time, either because of the treatments or the disease progression, they currently face five months to wait for Social Security disability income, which as we know, is a fraction of their working income, and then they have 24 months to wait for Medicare to cover them medically.

And as you'll learn from all the, the speakers here today, people living with metastatic breast ca- breast cancer do not have that time, um, and those wait times are already waived in our country if you're in the same situation and you're living with Lou Gehrig's disease or end-stage renal disease.

So we're just asking Congress to add metastatic breast cancer to the list.

And it, this is a pretty bipartisan response-

Yes

... to this legislation.

Well, tell me about that.

Absolutely.

So it's currently sitting in the Ways and Means Committee, which the c- the Congress member in question sits on and could pass this quite quickly if she so desired.

Um, and many bills have gone through this committee with a lot less support than ours has, so it's mind-boggling that with as much support as this has, it continues to stall.

And we are talking about our sixth year of supporting this, and if it doesn't pass by January, we start again at zero.

So she is a Republican.

She is.

But there are plenty of Republicans who support this.

There are.

She doesn't, but there are plenty of Republicans who-

Right

...

this isn't a, a left-right issue, right?

This is not a left-right issue.

And if you think back a year, part of what made this whole issue kind of explode in the zeitgeist was the way that people responded-

Mm-hmm

... to news about your efforts with this piece of legislation.

Would you remind people what the legislation is, first of all?

Certainly.

So this is a federal bill, and if passed, uh, for somebody who is under the age of 65 and living with metastatic breast cancer, once they get to the point that they're no longer working full time, either because of the treatments or the disease progression, they currently face five months to wait for Social Security disability income, which as we know, is a fraction of their working income, and then they have 24 months to wait for Medicare to cover them medically.

And as you'll learn from all the, the speakers here today, people living with metastatic breast ca- breast cancer do not have that time, um, and those wait times are already waived in our country if you're in the same situation and you're living with Lou Gehrig's disease or end-stage renal disease.

So we're just asking Congress to add metastatic breast cancer to the list.

And it, this is a pretty bipartisan response-

Yes

... to this legislation.

Well, tell me about that.

Absolutely.

So it's currently sitting in the Ways and Means Committee, which the c- the Congress member in question sits on and could pass this quite quickly if she so desired.

Um, and many bills have gone through this committee with a lot less support than ours has, so it's mind-boggling that with as much support as this has, it continues to stall.

And we are talking about our sixth year of supporting this, and if it doesn't pass by January, we start again at zero.

So she is a Republican.

She is.

But there are plenty of Republicans who support this.

There are.

She doesn't, but there are plenty of Republicans who-

Right

...

this isn't a, a left-right issue, right?

This is not a left-right issue.