Even though it was a rainy day, Jackie Flohr decided to go to a Latino Festival in Kearney, to take in the music, dancing and beautiful costumes.

While there, Flohr stopped at some booths, including one where she learned about the Every Woman Matters program that pays for mammograms and pap smears for women without health insurance coverage.

Flohr, who had no insurance at the time and was too young for the Medicare program, hadn’t had a mammogram in a long time. So she decided to use the program.  

Her mammogram came back positive. She had early stage breast cancer.

She also had no insurance and little money.  

But Flohr got the surgery and care she needed through a companion program to the Every Woman Matters screening. 

Flohr  can’t believe that the state would even consider dropping the program that saved her life two years ago.

 “If I hadn’t had that help (with medical costs), I don’t know what I would have done,” she said in a telephone interview last week.

American Cancer Society leaders also can’t believe any one would consider ending this successful program. 

The  program has paid treatment costs for 552 women with breast cancer and more than 40 women with cervical cancer since it began in 2001, said David Holmquist with the American Cancer Society High Plains Division in Omaha.

But the $1.5 million in state funds for the program would be cut if the state agency received less money than it needs.

Every year, state agencies are asked to provide information on what they would cut if they were funded at a 95 percent level.

Under those circumstances, HHS would cut all the optional Medicaid services, those not required by the federal government, said Vivianne Chaumont, director of the Medicaid and Long Term Care Division for the Department of Health and Human Services.

Because this program is an optional program it is on that list, according to Chaumont. 

Chaumont said it is unlikely the medical treatment program would actually be cut, but “that is up to the Legislature to decide.”

Holmquist has written a letter to Gov. Dave Heineman about the  issue. 

“I want to alert him to the fact that this is not going to be a popular cut,” Holmquist said.

This may not be in the HHS  regular full funding budget request,  but it is part of potential budget cuts, Holmquist said.

Gov. Dave Heineman, who will be offering his budget proposal to the Legislature in January,  generally doesn’t comment on his budget plan ahead of time.

But in response to Holmquist’s letter, Jen Rae Hein, an aide to Heineman said, “Gov. Heineman has been and continues to be supportive of this program.”

This medical program for women screened under Every Woman Matters is required by a state law that passed overwhelmingly and had the support of former Gov. Mike Johanns, Holmquist pointed out.

Flohr says she might have a whole different story if she hadn’t decided to go to the Latino Festival that September afternoon. 

She would not have gotten a mammogram then, would not have found the breast cancer early, might not have lived.

I’m active in the senior center, I sing with the Sweet Adelines and another group. I’m an active senior and grateful to be alive.”

Reach Nancy Hicks at 473-7250 or nhicks@journalstar.com.