Cancer costs for Americans with private health insurance rose after the ACA rollout and fell for those with Medicaid
Cancer burdens your finances as well as your health -- even if you've got insurance.
Low-income Americans ages 18 to 64 with cancer saved about
Those patients either personally earned or were in families that made
But adults under 65 with at least
I am a doctoral candidate in pharmaceutical health outcomes and policy. I conducted this study with two other scholars,
We wanted to learn how the ACA had changed what cancer patients spend on treatment costs. To find out, we examined data from a
These expenditures included health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs such as copays, deductibles, hospital stays, doctor's office visits, emergency services and home health care services. We compared these costs over the three years before the ACA's implementation, 2011 to 2013, and the seven years after, 2014 to 2020.
We excluded people 65 or older to focus on patients in the workforce. We also adjusted all costs for inflation, expressing them in 2020 dollars, and took steps to not let insurance status changes affect our results.
Treatment costs for the more than 16 million Americans who were 18 to 64 and had cancer from 2011 to 2020 varied based on their income.
For those eligible for Medicaid, spending fell by about 31% from an average of
Cancer patients with at least
These people were also more than twice as likely after the ACA's rollout as before it to spend a large part of their income on health care – making it hard for them to afford other basics such as food and housing.
Cancer treatment costs for people with annual incomes ranging from about
Why it matters
About 1.9 million Americans are diagnosed with cancer annually. Treatment costs rose to nearly
What patients pay varies, based largely on whether they have insurance coverage and what kind it is. Costs for cancer patients also vary based on their treatments and how well they tolerate them. The costs of drugs, doctors appointments and hospital services range widely.
Some patients spend so much on cancer care that they struggle to pay their bills, a situation known as "financial toxicity." Many cancer survivors owe debts they can't repay and even lose their homes. It's common for people who have had cancer to avoid filling prescriptions or getting treatment to curb their spending – endangering their health.
What's next
New cancer treatments are promising, but many of them are very expensive. In 2022, the average yearly cost of cancer treatments reached
However, not all cancer patients are benefiting from these medical advances. So my research team is now working on creating predictive models to help health care providers match patients to the treatments that they're most likely to respond well to.
Our primary focus will be on immune checkpoint inhibitors, a newer kind of cancer treatment that helps a patient's immune system do a better job of attacking cancer cells.
The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.
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