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 Researchers examined data on 394 childhood cancer survivors and 128
of their siblings who never had cancer. All were employed full-time,
but more of the survivors reported experiencing “job lock,” or
staying in the position to keep employer-sponsored health benefits.
“Because in the United States, employment is the avenue for
insurance coverage for many people, people with pre-existing health
conditions such as childhood cancer survivors may be at risk for
insurance and employment issues that could really affect their
access to health care and quality of life,” said lead study author
Anne Kirchhoff of the University of Utah and Huntsman Cancer
Institute in Salt Lake City.
“For survivors with health problems, they are likely using the
medical system more and recognize how vital insurance coverage is to
protecting their health and financial well-being,” Kirchhoff said by
email.
Job lock is probably worse for people who have been denied insurance
or dealt with high medical bills, Kirchhoff added.
“If someone has been denied insurance in the past, any potential
changes to their insurance coverage due to changing their job may be
a trade-off they are not willing to take,” Kirchhoff said.
The researchers surveyed participants just as many of the provisions
of the Affordable Care Act were rolling out in 2011-2012. The ACA,
also known as Obamacare, expanded insurance options outside
employment for many by offering subsidized plans via the insurance
marketplace and Medicaid expansion in some states.
Under the ACA, insurance companies also can’t refuse to cover people
with pre-existing medical conditions like cancer, a change that may
curb job lock in the future by giving people alternatives to
employer-sponsored health plans, researchers note in JAMA Oncology.
In this study, about 23 percent of the survivors and 17 percent of
their siblings were staying in their job to keep their insurance.
Among cancer survivors, job lock was 60 percent more common for
people who had previously been denied insurance, the study found.
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Survivors who had struggled with high medical bills in the past were
more than twice as likely to report job lock than when they didn’t
have unaffordable health bills.
Female survivors were 70 percent more likely to report job lock than
their male counterparts, the study also found.
Cancer survivors with severe, disabling or life-threatening medical
issues were 72 percent more likely to experience job lock than
survivors in better health.
One limitation of the study is that researchers relied on
participants to accurately recall and report on any circumstances
that might have contributed to feelings of job lock, which may be
subjective, researchers note.
Even so, the study adds to the body of evidence documenting
long-term financial concerns for childhood cancer survivors, said
Tara Brinkman of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis,
Tennessee.
“Job lock is an important issue for survivors to understand because
it has the potential to impede job mobility,” Brinkman, who wasn’t
involved in the study, said by email.
“However, because survivors are at risk of developing late medical
complications secondary to their disease and treatment, they must
balance the very real need for adequate health insurance coverage
with career goals,” Brinkman added. “Unfortunately, there does not
appear to be an easy solution to the problem.”
do ghosts even have
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2Afa0gh JAMA Oncology, online October 19,
2017.
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