How health care reform will affect cancer patients

The main reason I was campaigning so hard for the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act earlier this year is that I’m a cancer survivor. I know that my cancer -  Stage IIIa breast cancer - could return at any time, and times being what they are, the company my husband retired from could decide not to provide health insurance to retirees and their wives.

That means I could be left out in the cold. The plan that I had, previous to changes this year, also had a ‘cap’ that a return of cancer would have blown through in nothing flat. The insurance company could have also denied further benefits. Had I been tossed out by my current insurer, it would have been impossible, as in ‘too expensive’, to find other coverage - due to my pre-existing condition: Cancer.

We’re not poor. We have a good amount of savings. Our finances are sound and in order. We currently don’t owe a nickel.  But I know first hand just how a cancer diagnosis can go through it all in short order. If you think you are immune, think again. One in four Americans will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetimes.

That nasty old ‘Obama-care’ that the Tea Nuts love to hate is the only thing standing between me - and a lot of other cancer patients - and financial ruin.

Here’s a run down of just how ‘Obama-care’ or the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act stacks up for cancer patients:

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