The Five Cancers Most Likely to Lead to Bankruptcy

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October 11, 2011

medical bankruptcy, reporting on health, cancer, health care costsCancer Costs: A new study highlights the five cancers most likely to lead to bankruptcy, Michelle Andrews reports for Kaiser Health News. Topping the list: lung cancer.

Vitamins: Older women who took vitamin supplements, including multivitamins, had a higher risk of dying from cancer or heart disease, puzzling new research suggests, Janice Lloyd reports for USA Today. Half of America's adults are believed to take some kind of vitamin daily.

Tuberculosis: Worldwide, tuberculosis infection rates are dropping, and the death rate from the infectious disease plummeted by 40 percent between 1990 and 2010, according to a new World Health Organization report, Jeannine Stein reports for the Los Angeles Times.

Medicare: Health insurers are chasing after Medicare health care quality "star" ratings to gain lucrative performance bonuses, Christopher Weaver reports for Kaiser Health News. Higher quality ratings mean more money for Medicare Advantage plans that supplement traditional Medicare benefits for seniors.

Health Reform: Can health reform be distilled into a 135-page comic book? Apparently so, according to the Washington Post's and California Endowment Health Journalism Fellow Sarah Kliff, who's been paging through an advance copy of economist Jonathan Gruber's "Health Care Reform: What It Is, Why It's Necessary, How It Works."

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