Cancer patients were 2.65 times more likely to go bankrupt than people without cancer, a team of American and British researchers reported in the journal
Health Affairs.
The threat to solvency was greatest for younger cancer patients. They had two to five times higher bankruptcy rates than cancer patients age sixty-five or older, “which indicates that Medicare and Social Security may mitigate bankruptcy risk for the older group,” according to the study funded by the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities.
The study was based on analysis of 1995-2009 medical, personal, legal, and bankruptcy data for the western Washington State found in US Bankruptcy Court records for the period. “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.”
During the period analyzed by the study, of the 197,840 people in western Washington diagnosed with cancer and met the inclusion criteria for the study, 4,408 filed for bankruptcy protection, compared with 2,291 not diagnosed with cancer who also filed for bankruptcy. Among individuals diagnosed with cancer, those who filed for bankruptcy were more likely to be younger, female, and nonwhite and to have localized or regional stage disease that cancer victims who didn’t seek bankruptcy protection, the researchers found.