Cancer Patients Facing Challenges

The Terminally Ill At Risk of Running Huge Debts Despite Insurance.

Feb 10, 2009

Cancer Patients:Life Saving Support Out of Reach?, Clarita

A recent report seems to imply that cancer patients are facing challenges, including bankruptcy, in procuring and sustaining life saving treatments despite being insured.

Is the present private health care insurance system inadequate in taking care of the patients suffering from cancer and other terminal illnesses? A highly disturbing report released on Feb 5th, 2009 by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the American Cancer Society exposes the challenges faced by cancer patients in getting medical care even when they are insured. The report, titled Spending To Survive: Cancer Patients Confront Holes in the Health Insurance System, highlights the difficulties faced by 20 patients who were randomly selected from cancer stricken patients who approached the American Cancer Society for financial assistance and treatment support.

A video documentary, The Cost of Cancer, has also been released by the Kaiser Family Foundation. This video profiles 3 cancer patients who explain the difficulties they have faced in getting proper cancer care despite being insured with private health insurers.

According to the report, cancer patients run up huge debts, face bankruptcy and are even driven to delay or forego life saving cancer care for want of proper financial support.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation President and CEO Drew Altman, Ph.D, “The stories of people with cancer in this study and video documentary show that the insurance system often fails people when they need it most, when they get really sick.”

“High out-of-pocket costs coupled with the high cost of insurance premiums can force cancer patients to incur huge debt, and to delay or forgo life-saving treatments,” adds John R Seffrin, Ph.D, the national CEO of the American Cancer Society.

The report highlights five glaring drawbacks of the existing health care system which can put the lives of patients suffering from cancer and other terminal illnesses at risk.

Most patients, to their dismay, discover that the various cost sharing clauses and limits on benefits shown in fine prints on the insurance policy documents quickly lead to huge out of pocket expenses when the cancer treatment is initiated.
Individuals who are covered through their employer’s group health insurance coverage system lose the benefits as they are no longer able to work because of the illness. According to the existing law, the patients should choose, within a period of 60 days, to temporarily retain the coverage by paying full premiums in a single installment. If not, after 60 days they are on their own. The report cites the experience of Phyllis Miller of Johnstown, Pa., who missed the 60 day deadline and had been struggling ever since to get her late stage colon cancer taken care of properly.
Cancer patients and cancer survivors who are in remission after treatment find that most health insurers are not willing to take them on board. Those who are ready, quote exorbitant premiums for individual plans.
Paradoxically, most states do not have, in their health insurance portfolios, the protective high risk insurance pools designed to help cancer patients and other ‘uninsurable’ patients. This again places the cancer patients at the mercy of insurance sharks.
Red tape-ism, including delayed registrations for public health programs, prolonged waiting periods and strict eligibility rules may prevent cancer patients from receiving timely help from the social security disability incomes or Medicare coverage. Inability to work and high premium costs of individual health care insurances compound their problems and push them into a state of despair and hopelessness.

This study points to serious gaps in the health care system that needs to be addressed at the earliest.