The Race Divide in Medicare

By Filed under Medicare on July 30, 2013 with 10 comments

Using data from Medicare patients, researchers analyzed 107,273 breast cancer cases. The findings were striking. Overall, whites with breast cancer lived three years longer than black women. Of those studied, nearly 70 percent of white women lived at least five years after diagnosis, while 56 percent of black women were still alive five years later.

The researchers found a troubling pattern in which black women were less likely to receive a diagnosis when their cancer was at an early stage and most curable. In addition, a significant number of black women also receive lower-quality cancer care after diagnosis. (New York Times)

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  1. Devon Herrick says:
    July 30, 2013 at 2:40 pm

    This is bad.

    One reason may be that the black women studied were less likely to seek medical care for any reason.

    Although all the patients in the analysis had Medicare coverage, blacks were significantly less likely than white women to have seen a primary care doctor in the 6 to 18 months before diagnosis, and they had far lower rates of cholesterol and colon cancer screening. Black women also had far lower rates of breast cancer screening

    If they were uninsured, public health advocates would blame it on lack of insurance. But as one health expert stated in this article…

    “These patients have insurance,” Dr. Silber said. “We need to improve screening for these women and improve their relationships with a primary care provider.”

  2. Howard says:
    July 30, 2013 at 2:42 pm

    Well, if your getting private care, you have a better chance at finding out that you have cancer much earlier than if your relying on government care.

  3. Baker says:
    July 30, 2013 at 3:54 pm

    Hopefully they controlled for income.

    • August says:
      July 30, 2013 at 3:55 pm

      Of course they did. The causal factor seems to be:

      “the larger problem appears to be that black women get less health care over all, and that screening and early detection campaigns may have failed to reach black communities.”

  4. Bolton says:
    July 30, 2013 at 3:57 pm

    Interesting little fact at the end:

    “Ratings of patient-physician communication and trust have been related to black women’s, but not white women’s, patterns of chemotherapy use,” the authors wrote. These findings further reinforce “the idea that black women may have different cancer care experiences than white women.””