This afternoon, I stop off at the gym where I’m a member, to work out on the exercise machines. As I step out of my car, I notice the car that’s parked in the place in front of mine.It’s hard not to notice this set of wheels. It’s a Rolls Royce. A real beauty.
Then, I look down and notice something else about it. This chariot is sporting an “M.D.” license plate.
On impulse, I take out my trusty cell phone and snap a picture of it. It’s an image that seems emblematic of the problems and paradoxes of our health care system.
I don’t know anything about the doctor whose car this is, nor what sort of paycheck this person pulls down. Maybe he or she has inherited wealth. Maybe this doctor does a lot of pro bono work for needy patients – earning much, but also “giving back” much. Not knowing any facts other than the license plate, I can’t judge the individual.
I will say one thing, though: driving around in a Rolls Royce with “M.D.” plates is a pretty gutsy thing to do, given the present state of frustration with the health-care funding system in this country. Most people around here are used to seeing their doctors driving around in a Lexus or BMW. But a Rolls? That seems to take in-your-face ostentation to new heights (or depths, depending on your perspective).Maybe this sight is affecting me this way because I just finished reading an article about a new study funded by the American Cancer Society. The researchers found that uninsured cancer patients and those on Medicare are significantly more likely to be diagnosed with late-stage disease than patients who have medical insurance. From the article:
“The widest disparities were noted in cancers that could be detected early through standard screening or assessment of symptoms, like breast cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer and melanoma. For each, uninsured patients were two to three times more likely to be diagnosed in Stage III or Stage IV rather than Stage I. Smaller disparities were found for non-Hodgkins lymphoma and cancers of the bladder, kidney, prostate, thyroid, uterus, ovary and pancreas.”
Did you catch those numbers? The uninsured are two to three times more likely to be diagnosed only after their cancer has reached an advanced stage. In the case of certain cancers, like colorectal cancers, the prognosis for such patients can be grim:
“The study cites previous research that shows patients receiving a diagnosis of colon cancer in Stage I have a five-year survival rate of 93 percent, compared with 44 percent at Stage III and 8 percent at Stage IV.”
How likely are uninsured people, in the absence of any symptoms, to go to a gastroenterologist on their 50th birthday for a routine colonoscopy? Not likely, I’d say, if they have to pay the full sticker price for the test. Yet, if there’s a malignancy silently growing in their digestive tract, a Stage I detection – when the likelihood of cure is 93% – is highly unlikely without a colonoscopy.
The implication of the study is clear: lack of medical insurance is one of the leading risk factors for life-threatening cancers.I wonder how often doctors who drive Rolls Royces think about that sort of thing?
