Pre existing Conditions
Hester Hill Schnipper, LICSW, OSW-C Program Manager, Oncology Social Work
APRIL 24, 2017
First, yes I know that it should be pre-existing conditions with a hyphen, but this system does not allow any punctuation in the title of a blog.
All of us with cancer know about pre-existing conditions and surely know that we have a big one. One of the biggest advantages of the ACA/Obama Care has been the requirement that insurance companies sell coverage to people who have a pre-existing condition. This has been a promise for us, and many others, that we won't be shut out of the market.
Like everything else related to health care, this quickly gets complicated and expensive. At the moment, there is no acute risk of losing this requirement, but it behooves us all to stay informed.
From NPR comes this excellent article:
US Health Care Wrestles with the Pre-Existing Condition
For most of his life, Carl Goulden had near perfect health. He and his wife, Wanda, say that changed 10 years ago. Carl remembers feeling, "a lot of pain in the back, tired, fatigue, yellow eyes — a lot of jaundice."
Wanda, chimes in: "Yellow eyes, gray-like skin." His liver wasn't working, she explains. "It wasn't filtering."
Carl was diagnosed with hepatitis B. Now 65 and on Medicare, he had a flower shop in Littlestown, Pa., back then, so had been buying health insurance for his family on the market for small businesses and the self-employed.
The medications to manage Carl's hepatitis cost more than $10,000 a year — and if he ever needed a liver transplant, as some people with hepatitis eventually do, the further costs could be formidable. Thank goodness they had health insurance, the couple thought.
But then, Carl says, "the insurance renewals went way up."