Ensure adequate funding for dialysis

Ensure adequate funding for dialysis

By RICHARD DAYE
SPECIAL TO THE REGISTER

September 4, 2007

As Congress returns to work, our elected representatives will take up important health-care legislation that affects millions of Americans. It's truly a life-and-death issue for the thousands of Iowa residents who suffer from kidney failure (also known as end-stage renal disease) and require dialysis treatments to survive.

Iowa, like every other state, has thousands of individuals suffering from chronic diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity, all of which are major risk factors for kidney disease. One in every nine adults - 20 million Americans - suffers from chronic kidney disease, which, untreated, can ultimately progress to kidney failure. The number of people with end-stage renal disease who require dialysis is expected to double by the year 2012.

Because transplantation options are extremely limited, most patients who suffer from end-stage renal disease depend on dialysis treatments to survive. It's essential to ensure that quality dialysis care remains available and to provide prevention and education resources so that patients can become empowered to avoid end-stage renal disease altogether.

Of the more than 300,000 Americans requiring dialysis, minority communities and underserved populations are two of the groups at most risk. In fact, 37 percent of dialysis patients in this country are African-American.

My late wife suffered from diabetes, and for four years, I drove her to dialysis treatments several times a week. If dialysis clinics weren't available in our community, our lives would have been even more disrupted and my wife would not have been around to enjoy the last years of her life. We were fortunate that Medicare funding was available to help pay for the dialysis treatments that helped keep her alive for those last precious years.

Diabetes, which disproportionately affects African-Americans, knows no bounds for misery. My oldest son was diagnosed with diabetes and, at the young age of 39, needed dialysis treatment to stay alive. It wasn't until he received a kidney from my youngest son that he was able to survive without dialysis.

The current Medicare program provides access to dialysis treatment to anyone, of any age, with permanent kidney failure. But Congress is considering changing the rules on Medicare funding for those needing dialysis. The House of Representatives has already passed legislation called CHAMP, the Children's Health and Medicare Protection Act, which threatens to remove $3.5 billion for kidney-care programs - the deepest cuts ever for kidney care in America.

For many dialysis patients, Medicare funding is the difference between continued suffering or being able to access lifesaving care. Congress must do the right thing and protect people. Sen. Chuck Grassley can be a leading voice on this issue and help ensure a stable network of dialysis providers.

Adequate funding is critical to ensure that dialysis patients have access to top-quality clinics providing kidney care. Many rural and urban dialysis facilities are already operating on a razor's edge, since most of their patients are on Medicare or Medicaid, the federal-state health-insurance program for the poor. Unless this legislation is modified, patient access to care in these dialysis clinics could be compromised.

We have the opportunity to ensure adoption of fair public policy that will deliver quality care with adequate funding. Call, write, e-mail or attend a town-hall meeting and tell Senator Grassley we need to do what's right for kidney patients.

I hope God touches our legislators' hearts on this issue. One day they may find themselves in the same predicament that hundreds of thousands of Americans find themselves in today, trying to deal with kidney disease and afford the cost of dialysis.

The Rev. RICHARD DAYE of Des Moines is pastor of the New Friendship Church of God in Christ and is past president of the Des Moines Black Ministerial Alliance.

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