According to a report released February 5 by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the American Cancer Society, people fighting cancer, not only that face the fear caused by the life-threatening disease, but they also have to cope with the unbearable costs of the treatment, which lead most of them to bankruptcy. Some of them are even forced to forgo care, because their health insurance does not fully pay for their treatment.

 

“They’re stories about how insurance just doesn’t do the job. We need to make sure we’re not just giving someone an insurance card. The insurance needs to be adequate,” said Christy Schmidt, a co-author of the report and senior policy director for the American Cancer Society.

 

The report was called “Spending to Survive: Cancer Patients Confront Holes in the Health Insurance System. According to it, more than 1 million of 12 million cancer survivors living in the US have had to forgo care, including prescription drugs, for financial reasons. Hispanics and African Americans are the worst hit.

 

“People have worse outcomes and are diagnosed at later-stage disease if they are uninsured,” Schmidt added.

 

About 685,000 adults under the age of 65 are diagnosed with different forms of cancer each year, according to the report. With treatment costs ranging from $2000 to $7000 per month, most cancer sufferers are hopeless. One in five cancer patients who had insurance throughout their illness still used all or most of their savings, the report found. We can assume then that people lacking insurance are dying without even having the chance of treating themselves.

 

“The system seems to be failing most where it should be working best -- and that's for people who are sick,” said Drew Altman, PhD, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation.