Obamacare Helped Americans Detect Cancer Earlier
- Study finds more common cancers diagnosed at earliest stage
- Treating cancer earlier may lead to higher survival rates
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The number of Americans whose cancers were diagnosed at the earliest stage, when it’s most likely to be cured, increased after Obamacare went into effect and more citizens had access to health insurance, a new study found.
While the effect was small, the study found that a higher proportion of new breast, lung and colorectal tumors were detected at stage 1 in 2014 compared with a year earlier. About 16.4 million Americans gained coverage under the Affordable Care Act by March 2015 through a combination of private and public insurance, according to a U.S. government analysis.