Glioblastoma multiforme is considered a rare cancer. It affects only about 3 people in 100,000. And yes, that sounds pretty rare. Thank goodness.
However, according the the CBO, the various versions of the GOP healthcare bill will take health care away from 22 to 32 million Americans. With numbers like that, even a rare disease runs up quite a tally. Somewhere between 600 and 1,000 Americans will be without the insurance it takes to fight that rare cancer. Of course, they might be able to fund it out of their own pockets. After all, the cost of treating a brain tumor is only around $700,000. Some of those people might also be lucky enough to wander into an ER where a non-specialist is sharp enough to diagnose what’s wrong with them and take some action. Some of that action might even be in time.
So it’s not fair to say that every one of those 600 to 1,000 people is going to die because of the vote made today by the Republicans. Just most of them.
Of course, that’s a pretty small number compared to the more than 60,000 heart attacks that could be expected every year among that uninsured population. More than 130,000 of those people are going to find themselves hit with some form of cancer. Even the 1,400 or so children who will die of childhood cancers is larger than the number who fall to glioblastoma.
So the people who will die of glioblastoma because of the vote today? That number is relatively small.
It just seems particularly poignant.