Cancer survivors spend more on healthcare

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa., June 14 (UPI) -- The approximately 12 million U.S. cancer survivors have medical care costs $4,000 to $5,000 more annually than those who have never had cancer, researchers say.

Pamela Farley Short, professor of health policy and administration at Pennsylvania State University, and colleagues focused their study on cancer survivors ages 25 through 64 using national data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. They linked this data to another data source to identify cancer survivors.

Of the people identified as cancer survivors, 53 percent were missed in earlier studies.

"We made the effort to do it right, and found the earlier estimates were off," Short said in a statement.

The study, published in the journal Cancer, found U.S. cancer survivors are disproportionately women, non-Hispanic whites, unmarried -- single, divorced or widowed -- and publicly insured.

However, men paid 16 percent of cancer-related increases in healthcare out of pocket, while women paid 9 percent. The largest out-of-pocket expense for cancer survivors is prescriptions, Short said.

"This research is also important because cancer survivors are a sympathetic group for calling attention to the challenges that many people face in paying for healthcare," Short said.

"In a way, I think cancer survivors are poster children for a lot of the issues that we face as a society in considering whether and how to proceed with healthcare reform."