© Flickr.comA team of surgeons operate on a patient
After a colon cancer diagnosis, Deb Genetin, a 57-year-old resident of Springfield, Ohio, just outside Dayton,
was denied a life-saving surgery at Mercy Health hospital because, in the words of the hospital, her "financing wasn't in place." Genetin has not had health insurance in 10 years and makes only $20,000 a year as an administrative assistant in a law firm.
Last month, Genetin told the
Times-Reporter, "They never told me how much money they needed, how much money I had to come up with. It was just a 'No.'" Genetin had previously applied for financial aid through Mercy Health but was rejected. Genetin then sought cheaper care at Ohio Valley Surgical Hospital, where she received the necessary surgery.
While Genetin is currently cancer-free and now has health insurance, she is struggling to both meet her payments and pay off medical debt. "I had to drop my hours and my income to get [health insurance] and now I struggle to pay the house payment," she told reporters.
Genetin is one of thousands of cancer patients in the United States who struggle to afford adequate treatment. In the last decade, researchers and physicians have begun to further explore the patient-level financial and health consequences of high-cost cancer treatment.
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