Turning Pain into Purpose: Rep. Sewell’s Fight to Make Cancer Screening Available

Third of Three Parts

By Mia Watkins | For the Birmingham Times

U.S. Representative Terri Sewell (D-Alabama) turned her personal pain into a groundbreaking piece of legislation with the potential to save countless lives.

In late January, the Nancy Gardner Sewell Medicare Multi-Cancer Early Detection Screening (MCED) Coverage Act — named after the Congresswoman’s mother — passed the U.S. House of Representatives 341-88, spearheaded by Sewell and Congressman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas). It was signed into law by President Trump.

MCED tests, which are up for FDA approval in 2027, will immediately be covered by Medicare after approval. These emerging tests use blood samples to test for dozens of forms of cancer, some of which aren’t detectable or symptomatic until late stages. Without the passage of the bill, it would have taken a decade post-approval for Medicare to cover the test costs.

“That’s going to bring the cost of the test all the way down because they’re not going to pay those absorbent rates for it,” Sewell said.

Her bill ensures that starting in 2028, Medicare covers the groundbreaking, blood-based MCED testing for enrolled seniors. According to the American Cancer Society, almost half of cancer diagnoses are of cancers with no recommended screening tests.

The cost for the test out-of-pocket is about $2,000 and it has to be taken annually, according to Sewell.

“This should be available to everybody,” she said. “Why is this not available? The jurisdiction of the Ways and Means Committee is in charge of all of Medicare. I came back with vengeance to get a bill passed that would speed up the time for approval for this particular type of diagnostic testing.”

The Value of Early Detection

For Sewell, the value of early detection is deeply personal. She lost her mother to pancreatic cancer in June of 2021.

“She got diagnosed right around Easter, and she was gone at the beginning of June,” she said. “I just was not ready. It was like a lightbulb went off in my family. I wasn’t ready to be the matriarch.

Nancy Gardner Sewell, like her daughter, has her place in history. She was the first Black woman to serve on the Selma City Council. She also gave her daughter her first taste of campaign life. Terri served as Nancy’s first campaign manager while just in middle school. She also served as a personal hero for Terri.

She said her mom was just settling into a new normal after caring for her father, Andrew A. Sewell.

“My mom was the ultimate public servant,” she said. “She was a great role model. She died at 81. Having lost my dad three years earlier, she was just settling into going out more.”

Now, her memory will help seniors have access to life-saving early detection. Sewell’s life has been touched by pancreatic cancer more than once.

“In an effort to turn my pain into purpose, I noticed a trend,” she said. “I lost my mom to pancreatic cancer, I lost my mentor, John Lewis, to pancreatic cancer, I lost my other mentor in the House, Sheila Jackson Lee, to pancreatic cancer. Everybody gets it in stage four, and they all die. I said that I’m going to use the power of my office to find out what the latest and greatest treatment is, what research is going on.

The bill was a bipartisan effort. It was the most co-sponsored bill in the 118th Congress, with over 300 House co-sponsors and over 60 in the Senate.

Sewell credits this to cancer touching everyone, regardless of their side of the aisle.

“Cancer’s touched everyone’s life in some way, whether it’s a neighbor or church member,” she said. “It passed the Ways and Means Committee unanimously.”

Full Force

The power of early detection meant life and death for Brenda Phillips-Hong.

“If I had not had a mammogram, I probably wouldn’t be alive,” she said.

Phillips-Hong had calcification, which made her breast cancer harder to detect.

“That’s like a grain of salt in my breast,” she said. “I could never had felt that. I know that screening saves lives.”

The two-time breast cancer survivor and founder of Brenda’s Brown Bosom Buddies uses her nonprofit to help provide early screening, transportation and other necessary services for those diagnosed with breast cancer.

Phillips-Hong and other cancer advocates signed a letter of support for the bill and helped spread the word using social media and speaking on it during community health forums. She said she first heard about the bill at an event where Sewell spoke about it.

“Going to see her speak about it let me know that she was full-force on it,” she said. “There was no question that she was doing this not only because of her mother, she was doing it because it meant something to her. Because of the loss of her mother, she didn’t want that to happen to anybody else.”

She said the MCED test will save countless senior citizen lives.

“This is God-sent,” she said. “That’s how important it is.”