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Originally Posted by theking
I hear about such stories from time to time but take them with a grain of salt (something is left out of the story) because the truth really is one can receive treatment for virtually any illness...with or without private insurance.
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I saw her story on CNN. Basically what she said is that she got laid off from her job when the company she worked for closed the office she worked in. She was engaged and would be getting married in a few months so it was not big deal. Her soon be husband would be able to add her to his insurance after they were married. The problem was they would have to wait until the next enrollment/update which was only going to be about 2 months after they were married. So she was going to not have health insurance for about 4 months. Not that big of a deal. Literally 2 weeks after getting laid off she gets really sick an goes to the doctor. After some tests she is told she has cancer (I forget which kind). They send her to a specialist who checks her out then tells her the best course of treatment. He tells her that since she has no insurance he won't treat her without a $20,000 deposit. She calls around and finds pretty much the same thing everywhere else. Her fiancee and she take all the money they had for the wedding and borrow the rest to start the treatments. It will take more than that though so she eventually finds her way to the non-profit group that helps her raise the money for the rest of the treatment.
Of course now she is married and on her husband's insurance, but they won't cover anything cancer related because it is pre-existing. So if 5 years from now the cancer comes back they get to pay for it out of pocket again.
There may be states where she could have gotten coverage. I live in one of those states where they have state run program for the very poor and sick, but she doesn't and not every state has that kind of program. I'm sure there are many more people like her who don't get treatments they need because they can't pay for them.