Cancer is so expensive to treat that 42% of patients deplete their entire life's assets to afford treatment within the first 2 years, according to a new study. Patients faced higher likelihood of asset depletion with worsening cancer, continuing treatment, and increasing age.

I'm sorry. The same thing happened in my family. My grandpa was a farmer and actually did quite well for himself, but he never got health insurance and found out he had terminal cancer before he was old enough for Medicaid. His choices were basically:

  1. spend every cent of savings he and my grandma had on the treatment which probably wasn't going to work anyway, leaving her bankrupt with a farm she wouldn't have been able to run herself.

  2. kill himself.

He chose (2). Pretty much all of us in the family feel the same way, which is that we wish he had chosen (1). I'd gladly take a second job on nights and weekends to pay my grandma's bills. But my grandpa wouldn't have wanted that, and he chose (2). And we understand.

/r/science Thread Parent Link - amjmed.com