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The financial costs of cancer are great for both the person with cancer
and for society as a whole. In the year 2008, the National Institutes
of Health estimated overall annual costs of cancer in 2007 were as
follows:
Total Cost: $219.2
billion
Direct Medical
Costs: $ 89.0 billion (total of all health
expenditures)
Indirect
Morbidity Costs: $ 18.2 billion (cost of lost
productivity due to illness)
Indirect
Mortality Costs: $112.0 billion (cost of lost
productivity due to premature death)
One of the major costs of cancer is cancer treatment. But lack
of health insurance and other barriers to health care prevent many
Americans from even getting good, basic health care.
According to the early release estimates from the 2006
National Health Interview Survey:
- About 24% of Americans aged 18 to 64 had no health
insurance for at least part of the past year.
- About 13% of children in the U.S. had no health
insurance for at least part of the past year.
According to Cancer
Facts & Figures 2008:
- 1 in 5 people with health insurance who are
diagnosed with cancer use all or most of their savings because of the
financial cost of dealing with cancer..
- Cancer patients who have no insurance or not enough
health insurance have higher medical costs, poorer outcomes, and higher
rates of death.
In 2008, the American Cancer Society and its sister advocacy
organization, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action NetworkSM,
are
working together to bring the need for meaningful health care reform to
the forefront of public and political debate. One key goal is to make
Americans aware of the extent of the access to health care problem and
to motivate them to take action in support of change.
Cancer costs. Reducing barriers to cancer care is critical in
the fight to eliminate suffering and death due to cancer.
References
American Cancer Society. Cancer
Facts & Figures 2008.
Atlanta, Ga. 2008. Available at
http://www.cancer.org/downloads/STT/2008CAFFfinalsecured.pdf. Accessed
March 18, 2008.
Revised: 04/07/08
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