A study shows that all women who have military health insurance do not necessarily receive the same exact types of health care treatments. The study showed that black women who had breast cancer were less likely to get aggressive treatments for it than were white women who had the same form of cancer.
The study was done by researchers who were based at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Cancer Institute. Researchers compared the types of treatments for breast cancer that were given to women who had health insurance through the Department of Defense.
The women in the study were members of the military themselves, or they were a beneficiary on the military health insurance of a family member. There were around 2,300 white women and around 400 black women in this particular study.
Both groups were equally likely to have had a mastectomy. This is a type of surgery that either involves the removal of a breast, or the removal of part of a breast, as a treatment for a patient that has breast cancer.
However, the study found that black women, who had tumors that had spread beyond the breast, were less likely to receive chemotherapy or hormonal therapy as a form of treatment, in addition to the surgery, than were white women who had the same type of medical situation. This was despite the fact that both groups of women had the exact same health insurance.
Specifically, the study found that black women who had undergone surgery for breast cancer, and who had their cancer spread beyond their breast, were 60% less likely to receive chemotherapy than were white women with the same medical situation. The researchers also found that the group of black women were 50% less likely to receive some form of hormonal treatment after having undergone surgery, when compared to the group of white women who were also in the same study.
Why is this happening? According to Colonel Craig Shriver, the chief of breast care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, it is not due to the access these women had to health care. He did not have an explanation about why the treatment that the two groups of women received was different, though. A possible explanation is that all of the women were offered the same forms of treatment, but not all of the women decided to accept it.
There is a bit of a tracking problem with this study. If any of the women in the study had private health insurance, then that insurance would have been billed first, before the military health insurance. The researchers don’t have any way to track what was billed to the private insurance companies. It is possible that this could alter the results of the study in some ways.
Image by Stefano Brivio on Flickr