Health Insurance and Cancer Outcomes

If a patient is being treated for cancer, the outcome depends on several factors. Getting the right doctors, using the best therapies and staying healthy during the process are all part of that. Surviving cancer isn't easy to do, but as it turns out, other factors besides the form of treatment and the care providers can influence whether or not a patient will have a positive outcome. Health insurance matters a great deal. Like good doctors and advanced therapy, the better the options, the better chance they will work and defeat the disease.

In cases of testicular cancer, patients who had no insurance, or Medicare were at a higher risk of death from their disease than other patients with better coverage. The findings of a new analysis of data on cancer outcomes and insurance coverage shows the discrepancies in how well patients fared as related to their coverage. With the health insurance question being debated in the political arena, knowing that sometimes the kind of insurance, or medicare supplement plan, a patient has can influence the result, is an important factor is figuring out how to cover people adequately.