Women who lost Medicaid coverage tended to be in a later stage of their breast cancer at the time of diagnosis in a study involving women from the Tennessee Cancer Registry. Participants were part of the registry between 2002 and 2008. Investigators looked at differences in women diagnosed with breast cancer in low-and high-income zip codes before and after 2005 Medicaid disenrollment. Among the results:

• Overall, nonelderly women were diagnosed at later disease stages and experienced more treatment delays after the disenrollment period.
• Disenrollment was linked with a more than 3 percentage point increase in late stage of disease at the time of diagnosis in women living in low-income zip codes, vs those living in high-income zip codes.
• Women in the low-income zip codes were less likely to experience a treatment delay.

The authors noted that their findings show the potential negative impacts of Medicaid contraction.