Associations among healthcare insurance, tumor-node-metastasis stage and cancer survival: More to be understood

Table 1 Healthcare payment and survival outcome of esophageal cancer

Payment situation	Prognosis	Potential major explanations
Basic medical insurance
UEBMI vs URRBMI	Unfavorable	Less TNM stage I-II diseases, and more TNM stage IV diseases in UEBMI subset. More patients with TNM stage IV esophageal cancers were willing to undertake active therapies if supported by UEBMI
OOP rate
> 60% vs ≤ 60%	Favorable	More TNM stage I-II diseases, and less TNM stage IV diseases in high OOP subset. Potentially higher education level, better awareness of cancer prevention and control, more accessible healthcare resources, and better affordable finance
Per 10% incremental WTP
UEBMI subset	Favorable	Increasing the accessibility of active therapies in UEBMI subset which had more patients with advanced diseases
OOP rate > 60% subset	Unfavorable	As a post-hoc situation, associated with advanced stages migrating correspondingly

OOP: Out-of pocket; UEBMI: Urban employee basic medical insurance; URRBMI: Urban and rural resident basic medical insurance; WTP: Willing-to-pay.