By then, the reddish area along her hairline had grown from a 2-inch circle to cover nearly her entire forehead. It oozed fluid and was painful.
But Adcox was uninsured. She had lost her automotive plant job in the early days of the pandemic, and at the time of her diagnosis was equally panicked about the complex surgery and the prospect of a hefty bill. Instead of proceeding with treatment, she attempted to camouflage the expanding cancerous area for more than a year with hats and long bangs.
“It is very random — that’s, I think, the heartbreaking part about it,” said Dr. Evan Graboyes, a head and neck surgeon and one of Adcox’s physicians. “Whether you live or die from cancer shouldn’t really be related to what state you live in.” In 2019, 43,549 breast and cervical cancer patients were enrolled, according to a Government Accountability Office report published in 2020.
Since uninsured adults can struggle to afford preventive care, their cancer may not be identified until it’s more advanced, making it costlier for the patient and the health system, said Robin Yabroff, an author of the study in JAMA Oncology and a scientific vice president at the American Cancer Society.
That’s because the federal law was designed to encourage people to sign up when they are healthy, which helps control costs, said MaryBeth Musumeci, an associate teaching professor of health policy and management at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. If a new diagnosis were a qualifying event for new coverage, she said, “then it would incentivize people to stay uninsured while they were healthy and they didn’t think they really were going to need coverage.
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