Patients Under Pressure: Profiles of How Families Affected by Cancer Are Faring in the Recession

This report by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the American Cancer Society profiles six cancer patients and survivors and the challenges they face to help gauge how the recession and rising unemployment is affecting workers who are most in need of ongoing medical care.

The report, “Patients Under Pressure: Profiles of How Families Affected by Cancer are Faring in the Recession,” illustrates the kinds of problems such patients face in a recession, including obstacles to continuing coverage through COBRA; difficulty in finding an insurer who will sell them non-group coverage; the limited availability of public coverage; and the medical debt that patients can incur and the delays in care they often suffer if they become uninsured even for short periods of time.

It is a follow up to “Spending to Survive: Cancer Patients Confront Holes in the Health Insurance System,” a joint report released by the Foundation and the American Cancer Society in February.

Report (.pdf)