It is an unfortunate reality that many of us are far too ignorant of a disease that impacts us all — cancer. Our cultural tendency is too often to regard cancer as someone else’s problem. It is not. Whether it has affected you, a loved one, or just someone you know, the massive and escalating costs of combating this disease is something we can ill afford to ignore.
Executives — whose responsibilities extend well beyond themselves, the companies they run and the people they employ — also need to know the risks. The public healthcare system will fall short in covering the costs of drugs and treatment should they or their staff be diagnosed with cancer.
Without proper insurance regulation, which does not exist, one is left to hope that the fine-print private insurers often lace their policies with does not invalidate one’s coverage when it is needed most.
Understanding these, and many other issues, allows people to be on the best possible terms with their worst nightmare should it come to haunt them. For, as terrible as cancer is, the diagnosis is only the beginning of the trial, with the often-debilitating costs and cycles of treatments paving the path through an almost universally hellish ordeal.
Thus, while many would have previously considered cancer as a strictly healthcare issue, in this issue Executive examines the broader context and often ignored aspects of this condition that is so tragically common.
The systems the healthcare and insurance industries have developed to cope with those afflicted, the pharmaceutical profit model built around the disease, and the massive public policy implications whose human and monetary cost are weighing increasingly more heavily on our society, are things of which we need to be aware so we are to be empowered when the ‘Big C’ comings calling at our door.
