Well, the headline today on www.foxnews.com  read as below:

Study: Uninsured Cancer Patients Twice as Likely to Die

I had to read this story based on the above shocking headline.  Yet, it raised more questions than I expected after reading it.  Here is an excerpt from the story:

“People without health insurance are less likely to get recommended cancer screening tests, the study also found, confirming earlier research. And when these patients finally do get diagnosed, their cancer is likely to have spread.The research by scientists with the American Cancer Society offers important context for the national discussion about health care reform, experts say — even though the uninsured are believed to account for just a fraction of U.S. cancer deaths. An Associated Press analysis suggests it is around 4 percent.”

This article goes on to imply that the reason uninsured cancer victims are dying is due to our heartless healthcare system, which is letting these people down and essentially killing them.  This is an article, at its heart, that is as biased as they come regarding the uninsured.  First, as the article states, uninsured cancer deaths are thought to be 4%.  Now, I understand if you are unfortunate enough to be one of the 4% that you don’t care the number is that low.  Yet in the context of national politics, it is a rather low number.  So, 96% of cancer deaths are from the insured.  In that case, I don’t think having insurance has much to do with the outcome of treatment. However, reading the rest of the article sure sounds like our healthcare system is in total failure for this population.

Furthermore, I really wonder why people without insurance don’t get cancer screening tests.  Some of these tests like a colonoscopy are expensive, but others are not.   I think Americans need to be willing to take on the responsibility of their own healthcare, including screenings.  Sure, they can be expensive, but this is a person’s health at stake.  Wouldn’t the cost of a healthcare screen be more important than taking a vacation?  Also, I don’t know the stats, but I doubt most people with insurance get preventive health screenings for cancer.

I have always thought that all Americans should have catastrophic insurance coverage, especially to cover cancer.  The real question, as always, is who should pay for it?  Right now, we all pay for the uninsured through higher premiums.  Thus, I still like the idea proposed by Romney, require all Americans to purchase at least catastrophic insurance coverage.  Many of my conservative friends don’t agree with this, but I still believe it to be a reasonable solution. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 20th, 2007 at 7:33 pm and is filed under nationalized, Healthcare. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.