Cancer patients who are uninsured or are on Medicaid benefit less from experimental treatments.
According to UPI, this is true even if they get into clinical trials.
New research reveals Medicaid beneficiaries and the uninsured are only 23% more likely to achieve added survival from an experimental treatment.
People with private health insurance, however, are 66% more likely to derive added survival from interventions still under investigation.
The findings suggest that the uninsured and those on Medicaid effectively might be excluded from clinical trials because the costs aren't reimbursed.
Therefore, Columbia University researchers say patients don't have access to the potentially beneficial approaches being investigated.