Insurance

This week I resigned from my job to concentrate on my main job of getting well. Now the fun part of the process begins, changing insurance companies. (Queue evil music) The game now begins on denial of all claims for pre-existing condition clauses; then the insurance companies sorrow as they discover that yes they have to cover my cancer. HA! That is what all of us pay you to do. Cover us when we get sick! Imagine that, a health insurance company might have to actually cover someone when they get sick. Cody and I are very lucky in the friends we have who are able to assist us in navigating the insurance nightmare. We have a friend that lives in our community and is a patient advocate by trade, and has offered to help us understand the entire insurance mess. I know that there are a lot of arguments against national health insurance, primarily being that it would “ration” care. Healthcare in this country is already rationed. It took me 4 months to get an appointment to with my primary care doctor. Healthcare is already rationed. The only reason I’m at MD Anderson right now is that we have family and friends who made phone calls to their contacts inside the hospital to get me in. If it were not for their efforts I would be waiting for my appointment in March. Healthcare is already rationed. If you can’t pay, and are not a citizen of the state of Texas, you will not get care at MD Anderson. It does not matter if you live 1 mile across the state line in Louisiana, you will not get seen if you can not pay. I’m not advocating any type of healthcare system, all I know is that the system we have in the United States is broken; and most people don’t see it until they get sick. If Blue Cross had been able to get out of paying for my care they would have, they tried to get out of paying for it claiming it was a pre-existing condition (which wasn’t even diagnosed until I was under their care plan). If they had won on that argument, Cody and I would be bankrupt. Just like that. It would cost $120,000 per year to treat me at MD Anderson. No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick.