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The financial costs of cancer are great for both the person
with cancer and for society as a whole. In 2009, the National
Institutes of Health estimated the 2008 overall annual costs of cancer
were as follows:
Total cost: $228.1
billion
Direct medical
costs (total of all health expenditures): $ 93.2 billion
Indirect
morbidity costs (cost of lost productivity due to illness):
$ 18.8 billion
Indirect
mortality costs (cost of lost productivity due to premature death):
$116.1 billion
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 2008
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 United States had no health
insurance for at least part of the past year.
And according to Cancer
Facts & Figures 2009, "Individuals with no health
insurance and those with Medicaid insurance are more likely to be
diagnosed with advanced cancer." This leads to higher medical costs,
poorer outcomes, and higher cancer death rates.
This year, about 562,340 Americans are expected to die of
cancer -- that's more than 1,500 people a day. Cancer is the second
most common cause of death in the United States, exceeded only by heart
disease. Cancer accounts for nearly 1 out of every 4 deaths in the
United States.
Cancer costs billions of dollars. It also costs us the people
we love. 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 2009. Atlanta, GA. 2009.
Last Medical Review: 05/20/2009 Last Revised: 05/20/2009
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