This is a staggering number, and one of the reasons they’re trying to poison you with insecticides, herbicides, processed foods with GMO ingredients… This isn’t even including treatments, and look how much wealth is transferred to the OCGFC. And why so much of your income is taken for health insurance. You think it’s included as a benefit though it’s grown so much more expensive they’re passing the costs onto you to pay directly, but it’s actually part of your compensation hidden from you because your employer receives tax benefits for doing so. During one of our contract negotiations with AT&T they were paying on average $14,400 per employee for health insurance. And this was a long time ago when insurance was fully covered and not as expensive as today. As a not totally accurate example, we’ll take that sum and apply that to the 18 years I worked for AT&T, and it adds up to $259,200. If I had the option to not have that insurance and could receive that compensation paying for medical treatment myself, I’d have most of that money compounded with interest (direct pay is also cheaper). This is a wealth transfer scheme perpetrated on workers and people don’t even realize what is being done to them. And the white coats are so captured by this corrupt system, most of what they do is not even good for your health, contributing to the scheme transferring greater amounts of wealth.
The screening costs were found to be lower than the cost of cancer treatment during the first year post diagnosis.
By Naveen Athrappully
The United States spends more than $40 billion annually on initial cancer screenings, with almost two-thirds of this amount attributed to screening for colorectal cancers, according to a peer-reviewed study.
In the study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine on Aug. 6, researchers analyzed data from national health care surveys, and found that the “total health care system costs for initial cancer screenings in the United States in 2021 were estimated at $43 billion.”
“Approximately 88.3 percent of costs were attributable to private insurance; 8.5 percent to Medicare; and 3.2 percent to Medicaid, other government programs, and uninsured persons,” according to the study.
Roughly 64 percent of the total cost of cancer screenings was for colorectal cancer. Facility costs—the payments to centers conducting the tests—were found to be a major driver of cancer screening expenses.
Researchers said that the $43 billion estimated cancer screening costs are lower than the reported cost of cancer treatment in the United States in the first year after diagnosis.
They noted that screening may decrease cancer mortality and treatment costs. “Identification of cancer screening costs and their drivers is critical to help inform policy and develop programmatic priorities, particularly for enhancing access to recommended cancer screening services,” the researchers wrote. No funding sources were reported.
Cancer screening is crucial for people at risk of the disease, and detecting cancer earlier can reduce the cost of treatment. In addition, people can often continue to work while getting early treatment.
A survey conducted by the American Cancer Society (ACS) in March-April found that 47 percent of cancer patients and survivors incurred debt to pay for cancer care.
Seven out of ten individuals were in the age group of 35 to 44 while more than half lived in states that do not have expanded Medicare. People with cancer debts were found to be over three times more likely to be behind on their screenings.
Cancer Screening Legislation
The study comes amid a rising number of cancer cases in the United States. The country is set to see more than two million cases in 2024 for the first ever time, according to estimates by the American Cancer Society (ACS). This amounts to around 5,500 new cancer diagnoses per day. More than 611,000 cancer deaths are projected for this year.
“This trend is largely affected by the aging and growth of the population and by a rise in diagnoses of 6 of the 10 most common cancers—breast, prostate, endometrial, pancreatic, kidney, and melanoma,” the organization said in January.
ACS said that four of the cancers that are seeing an uptrend have screening tests available—breast, prostate, colorectal, and cervical. In the case of cervical and colorectal cancers, screening can “actually prevent cancer altogether by detecting precancerous lesions that can be removed.”
Meanwhile, lawmakers are introducing bills to control the costs of treatment for cancer patients. In June, a group of bipartisan lawmakers introduced the Medicare Multi-Cancer Early Detection (MCED) Screening Coverage Act.
The bill seeks to ensure that Medicare patients have coverage for innovative tests capable of identifying cancers before the development of symptoms.
“Multi-cancer early detection testing technologies have the potential to provide a vital new tool in the fight against cancer, transforming the screening landscape to detect as many as dozens of cancer types, often long before symptoms even emerge,” Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) said.
The measure “has the potential to save and enhance lives, as well as to reduce long-term cost burdens for patients, families and caregivers.”
In July, the Pennsylvania legislature passed a bill providing state citizens with better access to personalized treatments for cancer and certain other diseases through biomarker testing and precision medicine. Biomarker testing aims to identify biological changes at the molecular level, enhancing the detection of various cancers.