Patients living in Medicaid expansion states with newly diagnosed breast, lung or colorectal cancer have a 2 percent hazard of death reduction compared to those living in states without Medicaid expansion, according to a recent study published in JAMA Network Open.
Researchers evaluated 523,802 newly diagnosed patients using data from the National Cancer Database between January 2012 and December 2015. A total of 289,330 patients lived in Medicaid expansion states, while 234,472 lived in non-expansion states. While a 2 percent decreased mortality risk was observed in Medicaid expansion states, no change was identified in non-expansion states. About 1,384 lives out of the estimated 69,000 cancer diagnoses in expansion states would be saved if the 2 percent mortality improvement was achieved across all of those states, the study said.
The improvement is related to earlier stage cancer diagnosis in Medicaid expansion states. Researchers found the largest difference in patients with cancer that hadn't progressed to a metastatic stage and was still considered curable. However, the improvements were not observed after researchers adjusted for later stage cancer diagnosis, regardless of Medicaid status.
"Increased Medicaid coverage may remove barriers to accessing the healthcare system for screening and timely symptom evaluation, and that can translate into better outcomes for patients," Miranda Lam, MD, study author and oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, said in a statement.