One million Medicare beneficiaries will be diagnosed with cancer this year.

600,000 people in the U.S. will die of cancer this year.

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, affecting millions of families each year. Evidence consistently shows that early detection significantly improves treatment outcomes, reduces costs and saves lives. Investing in early detection is a critical and cost-effective public health strategy.

Despite this, our healthcare system is still struggling to keep up.

Many Americans, especially those living on fixed incomes, in rural communities or facing already limited access to healthcare, are being diagnosed at later stages of cancer, when outcomes are poorer and treatment much more expensive. 

And for too many, the diagnosis arrives not just as a health crisis, but as a financial one. I have worked with too many families who find themselves facing impossible choices — buy groceries for the week or cover their cancer treatments.

Against this backdrop, Congress has a rare and urgent opportunity to act.

Last year, members of the House Committee on Ways and Means shared deeply personal stories of how cancer has touched their lives as they reviewed and unanimously supported the Nancy Gardner Sewell Medicare Multi-Cancer Early Detection Screening Coverage Act. 

So, it should come as no surprise that the act is the first and only health care bill to garner majority support in both the House and Senate. That level of bipartisan consensus is almost unheard of. But the job isn’t finished until this bill becomes law.

My organization, the Cancer Support Community, and other nonprofits have seen where the system fails patients. Rural communities, in particular, face significant disparities in access to timely screening and care. 

Our data shows that longer travel times to treatment often result in later-stage diagnoses and lower quality of life. Catching cancer early can prevent this, offering patients the opportunity to receive less aggressive (and less expensive) treatment, and most importantly, more time with loved ones.

Yet many cancers still lack reliable screening tools. Expanding investment in early detection is not only a medical imperative, it’s an economic one. 

The earlier cancer is found, the less it costs to treat and the better the chances of survival. One estimate suggests that the preventative cancer screenings we do have saved the U.S. a cumulative $6.5 trillion over the last 25 years.

The Nancy Gardner Sewell Act would modernize Medicare to allow for coverage of cutting-edge screening technologies that can detect dozens of cancers through a simple blood test.

This policy would mark a turning point in the fight against cancer, particularly for older adults who face the highest risk and are often diagnosed in later stages.

The support is overwhelming. More than 550 organizations representing cancer patients, providers, researchers and advocates have urged lawmakers to seize this moment. Congress has already thoroughly vetted this bill and cleared it for passage. 

When lawmakers return from their summer break, there will be no better time to get this bill over the finish line.

Everything is ready to go. The support is there. Now is the time for passage.

Daneen Sekoni is the vice president of Policy and Advocacy at the Cancer Support Community.

The Trump administration on Monday approved six additional states seeking to ban food stamp recipients from purchasing processed food. 

Colorado, Louisiana, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Texas and Florida received federal waivers to adjust Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) guidelines outlawing the purchase of junk food with state funds in 2026. 

Colorado was the first blue state to adopt the measure. 

“SNAP is a supplemental nutrition program meant to provide health food benefits to low-income families to supplement their grocery budget so they can afford the nutritious food essential to health and well-being,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Monday before signing the waivers.

“That is the stated purpose of the SNAP program, the law states it and President Trump’s USDA plans to deliver on it,” she added.

Rollins approved the effort in May after Nebraska received the first federal waiver to ban soda and energy drinks from food stamps purchases.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has lauded the measure as a part of his “Make America Healthy Again” campaign. 

“U.S. taxpayers should not be paying to feed kids foods, the poorest kids in our country, with foods that are going to give them diabetes. And then my agency ends up, through Medicaid and Medicare, paying for those injuries,” Kennedy said on Monday.

“We’re going to put an end to that, and we’re doing it step by step, state by state,” he added. 

Researchers have long argued that SNAP restrictions are unlikely to change eating patterns, and that it will be costly for the federal government to track 650,000 food and beverage products on the market and 20,000 new products introduced annually, according to economic policy researcher Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach’s 2017 testimony before the House Committee on Agriculture.

However, Trump administration officials have lauded the effort.

“I hope to see all 50 states join this bold commonsense approach. For too long, the root causes of our chronic disease epidemic have been addressed with lip service only,” said the U.S. Food and Drug Commissioner Marty Makary, according to NBC News.

Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton (D) said on Tuesday that “nothing will be off the table” in response to the plan by Texas Republicans to redraw their congressional boundaries in a way they hope will give the state five more GOP seats in Congress after the midterms.

“We have a message for President Trump and Gov. Abbott: We are watching you,” Stratton told reporters during a press conference, which included Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Ken Martin, Gov. JB Pritzker (D) and Texas Democrats.

“In Illinois, we don’t sit on the sidelines. In Illinois, we don’t take kindly to threats, and in Illinois, we fight back. If Trump and Texas Republicans won’t play by the rules, we will look at every option available to stop their extreme power grab, and nothing will be off the table,” Stratton, who is running for Senate next year, said. 

The Texas GOP at the behest of President Trump are redrawing the state’s congressional maps to benefit Republicans. Redistricting was not originally on the agenda items for the special session Gov. Greg Abbott called but was added later. The move is a power play in that lines are usually not withdrawn until after a new census.

Texas Democrats traveled to Illinois, New York and Massachusetts beginning on Sunday to deny Republicans quorum, or the minimum number of lawmakers needed present to conduct legislative business, as the GOP tries to pass the new congressional lines. 

Texas lawmakers are in a special legislative session called by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) over redistricting, among other agenda items.

A Texas House committee passed the new GOP-friendly map last week, teeing it up for a vote on the House floor. With Democrats out of the state, however, those efforts are stalled.

California and New York have signaled that they’re exploring their options over how to pass new maps in light of Texas Republicans’ move to redraw their map in the middle of the decade; Stratton’s announcement suggests more blue states could follow.

Though Democrats are criticizing Republicans in Texas for passing an even more gerrymandered map, Democrats have also been criticized for doing the same in states like Illinois and New York — in some cases even seeing their maps struck down because of it.

Stratton, Pritzker, Martin and others convened in Illinois one day before the anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act, which has been used to help ensure fair representation for communities of color in election maps. 

“Republicans are running scared that voting for this monstrosity will make them lose their majority, and they certainly will, which is why they’re trying to disenfranchise Texas voters by packing and cracking them into districts to dilute their voting power, a clear and blatant violation of the Voting Rights Act,” Martin said, referring to Trump’s megabill. 

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) and Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Ken Martin will give remarks to reporters Tuesday morning, as the redistricting fight in Texas shines light on Democrats’ efforts to expand the Voting Rights Act (VRA).

The duo will be joined by a group of Texas Democrats that fled to Illinois as the GOP in the state looks to pass a new Congressional map — with the support of President Trump. The Dems argued the move violates the VRA and could give Republicans an unfair advantage in the 2026 midterms.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatened the Democrats with arrests, as their move stalled votes. Pritzker has vowed to help protect those who left the Lone Star State.

The press conference is scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. EDT.

Watch the live video above.