Former Minnesota Senate leader battling cancer urges legislature to require insurance coverage for wigs
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Former DFL Senate Majority Leader Kari Dziedzic described it as a "slap in the face" when her hair had fallen out due to her cancer treatment. Her fight against the disease prompted her to step down from her leadership post, but her personal health struggle inspired a policy proposal: Health insurance should cover wigs for cancer patients.
"I really didn't want to show up on the senate floor bald, so I just went to buy a wig. I had the resources to buy the wig, but not everybody does," she told a committee last week.
Her bill requires insurance coverage with a doctor's prescription for wigs up to $1,000 per year. Current law requires it for people with alopecia, and she believes it should be extended to Minnesotans who lost their hair while treating a disease they didn't ask for.
Wigs can cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars—pricing some people out from reclaiming part of their sense of self.
"If we are putting patients first, we will pass this bill to help patients move forward," Dziedzic said.
Jan Strassburg, owner of the It's Still Me Wig Studio in St. Louis Park, said questions about insurance coverage for wigs are often among the first her customers ask. And the answer is often no.
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She is a breast cancer survivor who opened the store with the hope of empowering women to feel their best and believes passage of this bill would go a long way to relieving some of the burden people battling cancer face.
"For the most part I think women want to be seen as themselves," she said in an interview with WCCO on Friday. "So the argument is kind of hard to make—you really don't need this. No, you don't really need it. You don't have to have it, but how do you put a price tag on your emotional well-being?"
"Fit, comfort, confidence—all that ties in," she added. "They shouldn't be deprived of that because they don't have the funds."
Just a handful of states mandate insurance coverage for hair loss due to cancer. Most of them require $350 for wigs; in Oklahoma, it's only $150. That would Minnesota's $1,000 coverage benefit the largest in the country.
Wiigs in Strassburg's store range from $200 on the lower-end, with prices as high as $5,000 each. She said the bill would cover all costs for most of her customers.
"If that can be lifted off of them, you would have one very grateful person," she said.
The bill advanced out of the Senate Commerce Committee last week. If approved, the provisions take effect at the beginning of next year.
