SACRAMENTO – Women who earn too much to qualify for Medi-Cal but not enough to have private insurance would receive high-quality breast cancer screenings under a bill by Assemblywoman Patty Berg that was approved by a key legislative committee Tuesday.

Assembly Bill 2887, by Berg, D-Eureka, requires an existing state-funded health program called Every Woman Counts to provide digital mammograms. Current law requires the program only to pay for analog images of the common breast cancer test.

The Assembly Health Committee approved the bill late Tuesday on a 12-3 vote.

“Early detection is the key to survival,” said Berg. “As a breast cancer survivor, I can personally testify that quality screening is absolutely vital.”

To qualify for the Every Woman Counts program, a woman must be 40 or older, a California resident, and meet income eligibility requirements.

“The state needs to pay for new mammogram technology,” said Berg. “As always, the law needs to catch up with new technology.”

Breast cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers among American women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2004, the CDC reported that 182,772 women were diagnosed with breast cancer and 40,954 women died from the disease.

The Susan G. Komen For the Cure is the sponsor of this bill. The bill is one of their legislative priorities for this year.

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