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The proportion of cancer costs paid by private insurance rose from 42 to 50 percent.
The proportion of costs paid out of pocket by patients -- including copayments and deductibles -- dropped from 17 percent to 8 percent.
Those last two findings surprised some experts.
Recent government reports have found that the percentage of Americans with private health insurance has been shrinking and recently hit its lowest mark in 50 years. Yet the study found that the proportion of cancer treatment costs paid by private insurance rose.
And companies have been tightening or cutting employee benefits, causing out-of-pocket costs to go up for many patients. Yet the study found that the proportion of bills paid by patients declined.
That last finding in particular was striking, said Lichtenfeld, the cancer society's deputy chief medical officer.
He alluded to widely reported increases in personal bankruptcies prompted by medical bills. "There's no question that the out-of-pocket costs for some patients have risen dramatically," Lichtenfeld said.
The rising price of certain treatments also should be acknowledged, he said.
The challenge of rising prices was recognized by American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), which last year released its first guidelines counseling cancer doctors on how to talk to patients about deciding between less expensive chemotherapy drugs made more sense than newer, more expensive products.
The study did not add in the cost of diagnostic tests and scans, which are cost drivers. And the data does not include the last five years, which saw some extremely pricey cancer drugs come on the market.
The picture may have changed since the study's data was collected and the U.S. economy deteriorated, said Dr. Neal Meropol, a Case Western Reserve University cancer expert who worked on the ASCO guidelines.
Newer treatments along with wider testing are driving up the overall cost of cancer care, Meropol said.
"My concern is that costs are getting shifted to patients and there is a potential for increasing disparities" in cancer care, he added.
[Associated
Press;
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