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Washington State cancer patients found to be at greater risk for bankruptcy than people without a cancer diagnosis.
- Source :
-
Health affairs (Project Hope) [Health Aff (Millwood)] 2013 Jun; Vol. 32 (6), pp. 1143-52. Date of Electronic Publication: 2013 May 15. - Publication Year :
- 2013
-
Abstract
- Much has been written about the relationship between high medical expenses and the likelihood of filing for bankruptcy, but the relationship between receiving a cancer diagnosis and filing for bankruptcy is less well understood. We estimated the incidence and relative risk of bankruptcy for people age twenty-one or older diagnosed with cancer compared to people the same age without cancer by conducting a retrospective cohort analysis that used a variety of medical, personal, legal, and bankruptcy sources covering the Western District of Washington State in US Bankruptcy Court for the period 1995-2009. We found that cancer patients were 2.65 times more likely to go bankrupt than people without cancer. Younger cancer patients had 2-5 times higher rates of bankruptcy than cancer patients age sixty-five or older, which indicates that Medicare and Social Security may mitigate bankruptcy risk for the older group. The findings suggest that employers and governments may have a policy role to play in creating programs and incentives that could help people cover expenses in the first year following a cancer diagnosis.
- Subjects :
- Adult
Age Distribution
Aged
Bankruptcy statistics & numerical data
Female
Financing, Personal statistics & numerical data
Humans
Kaplan-Meier Estimate
Male
Middle Aged
Neoplasms classification
Proportional Hazards Models
Retrospective Studies
Risk
SEER Program statistics & numerical data
Sick Leave economics
Sick Leave trends
Social Class
Unemployment trends
Washington
Young Adult
Bankruptcy legislation & jurisprudence
Financing, Personal economics
Health Expenditures statistics & numerical data
Neoplasms economics
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 2694-233X
- Volume :
- 32
- Issue :
- 6
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- Health affairs (Project Hope)
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 23676531
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2012.1263