In a study about what 1,000 cancer patients expected from their chemotherapy treatments, the majority of late-stage cancer patients thought the chemotherapy could give them a cure. The problem, though, is that chemotherapy treatments could only extend life for these patients, not cure it.

But despite the medical research to the contrary, 69 percent of lung cancer patients and 81 percent of colorectal cancer patients gave responses “that were not consistent with understanding that chemotherapy was very unlikely to cure their cancer,” Wonkblog’s Sarah Kliff reports. That was not what some of the researchers expected:

“I was really surprised,” says lead study author Jane Weeks, a professor at Harvard Medical School. “Prior studies have suggested maybe a third of patients don’t understand. Those studies are done in the optimal setting though, and this was the first to look at a big population. I thought the numbers were disturbingly high.”

The most surprising finding in this study, though, might come from when the researchers looked at what the patients’ thought of their doctors. The survey asked about how good their oncologists were at communicating about treatment.

Patients who rated their doctors as the very best communicators, the most open and honest, were the most likely to have the unrealistic, inaccurate expectations.

“This suggests that patients perceive physicians as better communicators when they convey a more optimistic view of chemotherapy,” the authors conclude. “Similarly, the finding that patients, especially those with colorectal cancer, who were treated in integrated networks were somewhat more likely to understand that chemotherapy is not curative suggests that providers may be able to improve patients’ understanding if they feel it is part of their professional role.”

The fact that patients think more highly of their doctors when they’re being told optimistic information about their treatments could be problematic as Obamacare regulation beginning this month will tie some hospital payments to how highly patients rate their hospital experience. “This is a cautionary tale,” Weeks told Wonkblog. “I think everybody agrees that satisfaction alone is an incomplete measure of quality. It doesn’t give you the whole story. I think this is an example of that.”

A 2011 poll about palliative care showed that 96 percent of doctors said that it’s more important to improve dying patients’ quality of life than to prolong their lives as long as possible. Presumably, the same idea should apply to patients going through cancer treatments so that they can know as much as possible about their treatments and understand the most likely outcomes.

While politicians clash over the details of health policy and President Obama’s landmark health reform law, social media often serves to cut through the political rhetoric and reveal the human impact of what’s at stake in this debate. When a musician tweeted about her experience going without insurance and received a flood of personal 140-character stories about the struggle to afford health care in response, it became clear that Internet tools can provide a platform for Americans to communicate the way that insurance — or the lack thereof — has changed their lives.

And NPR points out another corner of the Internet that reveals how much underinsured Americans are struggling to pay their health care costs: crowd funding sites like Kickstarter or GoFundMe. Although most Americans associate those sites with raising revenue for creative projects, there has also been an increase in the people who use them to raise money for their health care that they cannot otherwise afford:

One site that’s capitalized on personal-cause crowd funding is GoFundMe. CEO Brad Damphousse says in 2012 alone, the site’s users have raised more than $6 million for medical causes, and Medical, Illness & Healing is the site’s most popular category, attracting 17 percent of the site’s total donations.

In exchange for help with creating a donation Web page and making it easy to share it on social media, GoFundMe takes a 5 percent cut from all money raised. GiveForward and YouCaring are two other sites in the business of medical crowd funding (GiveForward charges a 7 percent fee on money raised), and they also attract millions in donations.

Some GoFundMe campaigns in the medical category range from modest requests for $1,000 to cover gas cards for parents to visit their baby son in the NICU, to ambitious goals to raise $200,000 for a medical trust fund (for one of the survivors of the Aurora theater shootings).

For the Americans who cannot afford insurance at some point in their lives, such as Aurora theater shooting victim Caleb Medley, just one unintended hospital visit can be catastrophic. Medley racked up nearly $2 million in medical bills after he was shot in the eye and slipped into a coma. And even the Americans who have insurance can accumulate charges they struggle to pay off in full, like the medical student who exceeded his insurance cap under his university health plan and turned to Twitter to raise the money for the rest of his bills.

Once Obamacare is fully implemented in 2014, the law will help address some of these cost barriers to care — particularly when it eliminates lifetime limits on health care plans, so Americans with chronic conditions don’t rack up costs that their insurance providers refuse to cover. But the soaring cost of health care still remains an issue for the millions of Americans who are uninsured and underinsured, and must turn to online tools when the rest of their options run out.

According to new findings by the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems (NAPH), by 2019, safety net hospitals’ uncompensated care costs will be $53 billion higher than originally estimated if states don’t opt into the voluntary expansion of the Medicaid program under Obamacare.

Safety net hospitals considered “disproportionate share hospitals” (DSH) serve areas where, on average, 14.9 percent of the population is uninsured and 32.5 percent of the population relies on government-provided health coverage such as Medicaid. Current Medicaid reimbursements often fall short of the full cost of care, so programs such as federal DSH funding help make up the difference. Obamacare cuts DSH funding in half by 2019 in an effort to reduce national hospital payments — but only because the cuts to safety net hospitals were intended be offset by the vastly expanded pool of newly insured low-income Americans. But Republican governors across the country are digging in their heels and refusing to expand the Medicaid programs in their states.

As a consequence, safety net hospitals that care for America’s most vulnerable could face significant financial burdens by 2019, and millions of low-income and disabled Americans may lose access to the medical services they need:

Now, the cuts to DSH –- unchanged by the court’s decision –- will come against a backdrop of great uncertainty regarding expanded coverage and the potential for significant shortfalls in federal support for safety net hospitals. [...]

This imbalance will have disastrous consequences on the nation’s vulnerable populations, who rely on the safety net for their health care needs. [...] In addition to directly threatening patients’ access to medically necessary health care services, the significant decrease in DSH payments, coupled with continued high levels of uncompensated care, will strain state and local budgets. This financial burden could lead to reductions in the availability of lifesaving services for vulnerable patients.

The NAPH study concludes that Congress should vote to restore DSH funding to avoid disastrous consequences for the American poor. But a simpler — and more efficient — solution than trying to wrench more money out of Congress would be for states to use the funds Obamacare has already allocated for expanding their Medicaid pools.

Numerous studies have estimated that states would save billions of dollars in health spending and improve millions of Americans’ quality of life by accepting federal funds to expand Medicaid. Unfortunately, GOP governors in states that have seven of the ten least-insured American cities have explicitly refused to participate in the expansion, denying millions of low-income Americans access to health care and potentially straining the future viability of hospital safety nets.

Amherst College has come under fire over the past month for its lackluster response to issues of sexual assault and rape culture on campus — particularly after one student published an article chronicling her own sexual assault, and her subsequent experience with an Amherst sexual assault counselor who urged her to just “forgive and forget” rather than report her rapist to the police, that went viral. The small liberal arts institution was accused of creating a hostile environment for survivors of sexual assault in the interest of “keeping up appearances” at the elite college.

Setting a precedent for the colleges across the country that have struggled with allocating the correct resources for addressing rape culture on their campuses, Amherst officials responded to the backlash by pledging that things “must change, and change immediately.” As Bloomberg News reports, the administration is now taking several important steps to address student concerns, including amending their current policies and increasing resources on campus:

“We need to do everything in our power to become a leader in encouraging victims to report sexual assault,” [Amherst College President Carolyn Martin] said in a telephone interview. [...]

The president had already identified shortcomings at Amherst. In the past, the school relied on accusers to prove their cases; now, investigators will gather evidence, she said. Amherst also included students in panels considering complaints — a practice that might discourage classmates from reporting, she said.

The new “sexual respect” website asks victims to seek support and report offenses to campus police. The college also brought in counselors affiliated with Harvard University who are experts in addressing sexual misconduct. Martin said she will form a special committee, including students, to consider other steps.

Bloomberg also notes that Amherst — one of the wealthiest liberal arts colleges in the country, which remains extremely selective with a student body of around 1,800 — was initially founded as a men’s school in 1821. The college only started admitting women in 1975, and Martin is its first female president.

Other higher education institutions have also made strides in this area after making headlines for failing to adequately address issues of sexual assault. After the University of Montana underwent a Department of Justice investigation last year to look into the multiple allegations of sexual assault on campus, administrators now require all students to complete an online training and quiz on sexual violence. And just this week, Boston University announced the opening of its new sexual assault resource center following a panel review of allegations of rape on campus last spring.

In a blow to low-income Texan women, the Fifth Circuit federal appellate court has denied Texas Planned Parenthood’s request to receive a re-hearing before its full bench, allowing the state to move forward with its decision to defund the organization.

Last week, the Texas Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) green-lighted rules to cut off federal funding to the state’s Women’s Health Program, after Texas officials targeted Planned Parenthood as an “abortion affiliate” that shouldn’t be eligible to participate in the program. A three-judge panel from the Fifth Circuit ruled that Texas could move forward with discriminating against Planned Parenthood, and the court’s move to deny Planned Parenthood’s re-hearing prevents the organization from contesting that decision.

In a press release, Planned Parenthood of Texas President Kenneth S. Lambrecht slammed the court for failing to recognize Texas HHS’s new rules as a politically-motivated attack on the essential medical services that his organization provides, as well as the low-income women in Texas who depend on them:

Planned Parenthood has been in Texas for more than 75 years, and we’re not going anywhere. We are here for the patients who rely on us and we will continue to evaluate every possible option to protect the health of our patients.

This case has never been about Planned Parenthood — it’s about the Texas women who turn to us every day. Politics should never come between a woman and her health care. Further consideration by the full court was needed to protect nearly 48,000 low-income Texas women’s access to preventive health care such as life-saving breast and cervical cancer screenings, birth control and STD screenings.

In the wake of Texas HHS’s and the appellate court’s decisions, over 100 providers are expected to lose their funding, denying preventative screenings and other health services to thousands of low-income women in Texas — a state where over 160,000 women are already forgoing such care due to state budget cuts and regulatory restrictions. Earlier this week, a federal appellate court in Indiana and a federal judge in Arizona blocked those states from following in Texas’ footsteps and defunding their own Planned Parenthood affiliates.