Offered During Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Bill Would Mint Coins to Boost Efforts to Fight Breast Cancer

Washington—Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today cosponsored bipartisan legislation introduced by Senators Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) to fight breast cancer by minting coins for one year to benefit life-saving breast cancer research.

Introduced during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Heitkamp and Ayotte’s Breast Cancer Awareness Commemorative Coin Act would create pink, silver, and metal-alloy coins to benefit the Breast Cancer Research Foundation’s efforts to fight breast cancer. Minted at no additional cost to taxpayers, the coins would become available for purchase in 2018, and would be minted the following year using the funding from coin orders.

Breast cancer impacts 231,840 women nationwide, who according to estimates, will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in 2015. Breast cancer ranked highest in 2014 among all cancer care expenditures, costing an estimated $18.1 billion.

Cosponsors of the bill also include Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va), John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.).

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