It’s About Time
Aug 31st, 2007 at 9:43 am by Susie
While unemployed and uninsured, my doctor started nagging me because it’s been at least ten years since I had a mammogram. She said there were free programs.
“And suppose it shows something?” I said. “Are there free programs for that, too?
“You know as well as I do that any treatment I’d get without insurance would be half-assed at best and I’d die, anyway. Why put myself through all that aggravation? No, thanks. I’ll go when we have national health insurance.”
She couldn’t argue with me. After all, I have the facts on my side.
So I was pleasantly surprised to read this today:
ATLANTA, Aug. 30 — In a stark departure from past practice, the American Cancer Society plans to devote its entire $15 million advertising budget this year not to smoking cessation or colorectal screening but to the consequences of inadequate health coverage.
The campaign was born of the group’s frustration that cancer rates are not dropping as rapidly as hoped, and of recent research linking a lack of insurance to delays in detecting malignancies.
Though the advertisements are nonpartisan and pointedly avoid specific prescriptions, they are intended to intensify the political focus on an issue that is already receiving considerable attention from presidential candidates in both parties.
[…] But John R. Seffrin, the chief executive of the cancer society, which is based here, said his organization had concluded that advances in prevention and research would have little lasting impact if Americans could not afford cancer screening and treatment.
“I believe, if we don’t fix the health care system, that lack of access will be a bigger cancer killer than tobacco,” Mr. Seffrin said in an interview. “The ultimate control of cancer is as much a public policy issue as it is a medical and scientific issue.”
I just read somewhere that cancer treatment bankrupts one out of every four people who have it. This may be your future, people. Start pushing the politicians.
yeah i’ve been walking around with a mammogram scrip since january myself. if i meet my 5k deductible (it’s fast approaching) my insurance will cover it, so maybe i’ll get one.
frankly, i’d rather die than lose everything i have to cancer treatment. because what the fuck am i gonna do as a penniless 50+ woman?
“cancer treatment bankrupts one out of every four people who have it.”
That’s a great statistic. Can you find the source?
Here’s some good news from the American Cancer Society (warning - Powerpoint presentation) (http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PRO/content/PRO_1_1_Cancer_Statistics_2007_Presentation.asp)
Based on data collected in 2001-2003, men only have a 1 in 2 chance of contracting some form of cancer in their lifetime, women only a 1 in 3 chance. 66% overall survival rate.
Someone who’s good with statistics — that’s what chance of bankruptcy from cancer? If you survive the cancer, of course… Let’s take the best case scenario that 33 women out of 100 get cancer, assume 22 survive (a little better than 66%), then 5 file for bankruptcy. (Is that correct?)
So (roughly), at best you have a 1 in 3 chance of getting cancer (look to your left, look to your right, one of you will get cancer…), a 1 in 5 chance of getting and surviving cancer, a 1 in 10 chance of dying of cancer, and a 1 in 20 chance of getting cancer, surviving, and filing for bankruptcy.
For comparison, the National Weather Service says that your odds of being struck by lightning in your lifetime are around 1 in 5000….
(http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/medical.htm)
I once made a similar comment to a doctor in a Florida emergency room and he locked me in the psych ward for 24 hours. (For which, of course, I was billed!)
I’ve become very careful about expressing my views on health care since then.
I didn’t find that story yet, although I did find this:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6895896/