NPR article on cancer treatment cost

NPR recently published an article on cancer treatment and medical debts.

Cancer is one of the leading cause of deaths in the US. However, thanks to medical research and breakthroughs, many more patients are surviving compared to decades ago.

Unfortunately, the cost of treatment often put patients and their families in medical debt. 

In the article, Dr. Veena Shankaran, a University of Washington oncologist who began studying the financial impact of cancer after seeing patients ruined by medical bills said: "Even if someone survives the cancer, they often can't shake the debt."

Shankaran found that cancer patients were 71% more likely than Americans without the disease to have bills in collections, face tax liens and mortgage foreclosure, or experience other financial setbacks. Analyzing bankruptcy records and cancer registries in Washington state, Shankaran and other researchers also discovered that cancer patients were 2½ times more likely to declare bankruptcy than those without the disease.

And cancer patients who went bankrupt were more likely to die than those who did not. Oncologists have a name for this: "financial toxicity," a term that echoes the intractable vomiting, life-threatening infections and other noxious effects of chemotherapy. 

This is a sobering article regarding medical debts. Unless there is an overhaul of the current healthcare model, I'm not sure how to solve this social issue. For now, I've listed some resources for financial help from non-profit organizations. Hopefully one day in the future, we have enough voter willpower to change the system.