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Young Adults at Higher Cancer Risk

March 6, 2014

Findings Provide Further Evidence that Maine Should Move Quickly to Increase Access to Health Coverage for Most Vulnerable Residents

Augusta, Maine – March 3, 2014 – A new American Cancer Society study shows that uninsured adolescents and young adults are up to twice as likely as those with health insurance to be diagnosed with late-stage cancer, which is more difficult and expensive to treat and more deadly than cancers caught early.

The study found that uninsured males age 15 to 39 were 1.5 times as likely as those with private insurance to be diagnosed with cancer that has metastasized to distant parts of the body, or what the study calls distant cancer. Uninsured females in that age group were nearly twice as likely as those with private insurance to be diagnosed with metastatic cancer.

The findings build upon years of Society research among older populations showing that the uninsured are more likely than people with private insurance to be diagnosed with advanced cancer and are less likely to survive the disease.

These findings suggest efforts to increase access to quality, affordable health care are critical. Maine lawmakers currently have the opportunity to increase access to health coverage through the state’s Medicaid program, MaineCare, to help ensure fewer state residents are uninsured and therefore at higher risk of dying from a cancer diagnoses.

If lawmakers accept the federal funds set aside to increase access to MaineCare, nearly 70,000 more Mainers would have access to health care that would enable them to see doctors regularly, access preventive services such as Pap tests, mammograms and colonoscopies and avoid expensive and unnecessary visits to the emergency room.

“The time to act is now,” said Hilary Schneider, Maine government relations director for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN), the advocacy affiliate of the American Cancer Society. “Our lawmakers have an unprecedented opportunity right now to save countless lives in our state by increasing access to MaineCare, and to do it in an affordable way. It’s simply too important an opportunity to pass up.”

ACS CAN volunteer Jeff Bennett, of Portland, knows all too well just what difference health coverage can make in the fight against cancer. Bennett is a cancer survivor and credits the access he had to critical health care through his health insurance plan with saving his life.

“I was lucky – and that’s not something you hear many people diagnosed with cancer say,” said Bennett. “I was lucky because I had health insurance that allowed me access to the treatments I needed to save my life. But I’ve seen the other side. I watched as my brother lost his best friend at age 25 to a preventable and treatable cancer – melanoma – because he didn’t have health insurance that would have allowed him to see a doctor earlier and given him a fighting chance against this disease. Maine lawmakers have a responsibility to accept the money available to them and increase access to health coverage, the kind of coverage that saved my life and could have saved my brother’s friend.”

“Mainers can’t wait any longer,” Schneider said. “This decision isn’t about politics, it’s about people’s lives. Increasing access to affordable, quality health coverage to more hard-working residents in Maine will save lives. We encourage Maine legislators to act quickly to accept the federal funds available and we urge Governor LePage to sign the bill into law.” 

This year in Maine, it is estimated that nearly 9,000 people will be diagnosed with cancer and another 3,230 will die of the disease.

The Society’s study analyzed a national sample of nearly 260,000 people in the United States aged 15 to 39 who were diagnosed with cancer between 2004 and 2010. It will appear in the March issue of the scientific journal CANCER.

An abstract of the study is at http://bit.ly/1ddaKPM and the American Cancer Society’s summary of the findings is at http://bit.ly/MolDHc. A PDF copy of the full study is available upon request.

ACS CAN, the nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy affiliate of the American Cancer Society, supports evidence-based policy and legislative solutions designed to eliminate cancer as a major health problem. ACS CAN works to encourage elected officials and candidates to make cancer a top national priority. ACS CAN gives ordinary people extraordinary power to fight cancer with the training and tools they need to make their voices heard. For more information, visit www.fightcancer.org.

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