Having or not having health insurance can affect more than just your financial health. A study released today from the American Cancer Society finds that people diagnosed with cancer are much more likely to die if they don’t have insurance than if they do. The reason: They’re more unlikely to get screened early. By the time they are finally screened, it’s often already too late.
"If you are uninsured, and you are diagnosed with cancer, you have a 60 percent greater chance of dying from cancer than if you were insured and diagnosed with cancer," Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer at the cancer society, told Health Day News. "There is not a cohort of insured and a cohort of uninsured cancer patients that have the same five-year survival. It's always the uninsured who do worse."
Some interesting statistics from the study:
• 38.1 percent of uninsured women aged 40 to 64 had a mammogram since 2005
• 74.5 percent of insured women have had them (same age group)
• 20 percent to 30 percent of uninsured women will be diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer (same age group)
• Only 10 percent to 15 percent of insured women will be diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer (same age group)