The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation encourages community members to evaluate policies through the lens of how they would impact people with cystic fibrosis and their families. During an election cycle, it's important to evaluate candidates and their positions on health care issues through that same lens. The CF Foundation's policy priorities can serve as a conversation guide for advocates when learning about candidates and how their positions may impact the CF community. Knowing where candidates stand on health care issues can result in a more informed CF community during elections.

We have provided a list of suggested questions based on our policy priorities to ask candidates during an election season.

Health Care Access, Coverage, and Cost

1. Under current law, insurers can't place lifetime and annual caps on care, charge people with pre-existing conditions more for their coverage, or deny coverage altogether. These protections have been critical to ensuring people with CF can purchase affordable insurance that meets their complex needs.
   • Do you support retaining important protections for people with pre-existing conditions, such as prohibitions on lifetime or annual coverage caps?
   • Do you support retaining protections that prevent insurers from charging someone more for their insurance simply because they have a pre-existing condition?
   • Do you support retaining protections that prevent insurers from excluding certain health services because of pre-existing conditions, such as prescription drugs or mental health care?
2. Policies that undermine the individual insurance marketplace will result in a market for healthy people and a market for people with pre-existing conditions who need comprehensive coverage, driving up the cost of coverage for people with CF.
   • How will you ensure that the individual insurance market meets the needs of people with pre-existing conditions, like CF, and offers affordable plans that cover the specialty care someone with cystic fibrosis needs?
   • Do you support permanently expanding enhanced Advance Premium Tax Credits — used to lower monthly premiums for Marketplace health insurance plans — to ease the cost burden for people with CF and other Americans who rely on the individual marketplace for health coverage?
3. Medicaid fills critical coverage gaps for half of all children and one-third of adults living with CF. Cuts to Medicaid funding, including through the implementation of block grants or per capita caps, limit states' abilities to keep pace with providing access to groundbreaking, lifesaving treatments.
   • Do you support a strong Medicaid program that provides health care to those who need it?
   • Do you oppose capping or cutting Medicaid funding?     
4. In recent years, telehealth has become an essential tool to enable people living with cystic fibrosis to access timely and safe care right sized to their health needs. Federal and state agencies have provided temporary flexibilities to increase access to telehealth, and making some of these telehealth flexibilities permanent would ensure people with CF have safe and consistent access to their established care team. 
   • Do you support policies that permanently expand availability and coverage of telehealth provides and services?

Therapeutics Development and Innovation

1. Despite advances in CF research, there is still much more work to be done to understand the disease and discover treatments — and ultimately a cure — for all people with CF.
   • What is your position on providing additional funding to the National Institutes of Health for groundbreaking research?
   • What is your position on policies that provide pathways for accelerating drug review and approval while maintaining strong standards for approving potential treatments?
2. People with CF face a heightened, life-long risk of infections, and many battle difficult-to-treat infections for which there are no effective antibiotics available. Although more and more pharmaceutical companies are investing in the research and development of antibiotics, more action is needed to combat the growing and urgent threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
   • What steps should the government take to promote a robust, sustainable pipeline of antibiotics?

Note: When identifying yourself at non-Cystic Fibrosis Foundation events, it is important to make it clear to your audience that you are speaking in your individual capacity and not as a representative of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. For more information about our policy positions, email publicpolicy@cff.org.