Note: If you are uninsured and diagnosed with cancer, you will probably find an oncologist and a hospital that will treat you. However, although your chemotherapy cost of tens of thousands of dollars is absorbed, no one will pay for the antiemetics (anti-nausea drugs) that your doctor will prescribe for you to take at home to manage the side effects of chemotherapy. (If you know something different, please post it in the comments.) So, if you don’t have any money, your oncologist will prescribe compazine (prochlorperazine), which is cheap, and used over 20 years ago, when people banged their heads against the toilet vomiting from chemo.  There are newer, more effective drugs, like Zofran (ondansetron) and Kytril (granisetron), that control nausea and vomiting. They are expensive. Uninsured patients usually can’t afford either. They don’t complain though, because they are getting their chemotherapy for free and they know they should be grateful. So they suffer. It’s the politics of health care.