The expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act in 2010 nearly erased a key disparity in access to cancer care for white and African-American patients, according to a new study.
The American Society of Clinical Oncology chose the study for prime placement this weekend at the plenary session of its annual meeting, the world’s largest gathering of cancer doctors, squeezing it in between studies of state-of-the-art cancer drugs in a statement about the importance of health insurance in determining how well cancer patients are treated.
“If you can’t access care you can’t benefit from care,” said Dr. Richard L. Schilsky, the society’s chief medical officer. “For all the advances we’ve observed in recent years in cancer treatment, in cancer care broadly speaking, if you don’t have insurance, if you can’t access care, if you can’t get care in a timely fashion, you can’t benefit.”
The new findings are striking. The study compared 18,678 patients who were treated for cancer either before states expanded the number of people who could receive Medicaid benefits under the ACA, or in states that chose not to expand Medicaid, to 11,708 patients who were treated in states that did expand Medicaid.
