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Wednesday, December 7, 2011

'Obamacare' to the rescue

The ACA act, commonly known as 'Obamacare' is stealthily gaining more support as more Americans are feeling it's benefits. One key issue is the availability of health insurance for people with pre-existing conditions. Another is a partial filling of the 'doughnut hole' in Medicare drug benefits which has reduced out of pocket expenses after the threshold of $2,700 to $6,154 where all expenses are borne by the patient. Millions of Medicare patients are already reaping the benefit of reducing that expense.

Those 25 or younger who are having the toughest time finding jobs, never mind jobs with health benefits can stay on their parent's plans are feeling the effect. Rescission, where health insurers can cancel a policy because the policy can be cancelled because of an omission in the original application is a thing of history. One of the more notorious cases was where a woman's policy was cancelled after being diagnosed with breast cancer because she neglected to mention she was treated for acne as an 18 year old won't happen again.

This personal story in the op-ed pages of the Los Angeles Times has been getting a lot of attention.

I want to apologize to President Obama. But first, some background.

I found out three weeks ago I have cancer. I'm 49 years old, have been married for almost 20 years and have two kids. My husband has his own small computer business, and I run a small nonprofit in the San Fernando Valley. I am also an artist. Money is tight, and we don't spend it frivolously. We're just ordinary, middle-class people, making an honest living, raising great kids and participating in our community, the kids' schools and church.

We're good people, and we work hard. But we haven't been able to afford health insurance for more than two years. And now I have third-stage breast cancer and am facing months of expensive treatment.


The full article here.

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