Study: For Patients Battling Cancer, Medicaid Is Worse Than Being Uninsured

Study: For Patients Battling Cancer, Medicaid Is Worse Than Being Uninsured 
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2012/03/20/study-patients-battling-cancer-medicaid-worse-being-uninsured

Patients enrolled in Medicaid have worse survival rates than those with private insurance or even no insurance at all, according to a new study focused on Ohio Medicaid recipients published in the journal Cancer.
Researchers Siran Koroukian, Paul Bakaki, and Derek Raghavan compared survival and five-year mortality with Medicaid status in more than 11,000 Ohio adults aged 15 to 54 years and diagnosed in the years 1996-2002 with eight highly treatable cancers. They also sorted the Medicaid enrollees into two categories—those enrolled at the time of their diagnosis and those enrolled afterwards—to get more insight into how coverage impacts outcomes. . . . . . .