75: Ezekiel J. Emanuel explains why cancer patients shouldn’t pay out-of-pocket costs

First Opinion Podcast

The high cost of cancer treatment in the U.S. is literally killing people. “Over a quarter of cancer patients delay medical care, go without care, or make changes in their cancer treatment because of cost,” Ezekiel J. Emanuel, an oncologist and co-director of the Health Care Transformation Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote in a recent First Opinion essay. But Emanuel says there’s a solution: Cancer patients shouldn’t have to pay any out-of-pocket costs for their treatment, especially in the first (and typically most expensive) year after diagnosis.