So many mixed emotions. I'm grateful to Obama for my new health insurance, my public option,

tpsbmam

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Wed Sep-21-11 03:54 PM
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So many mixed emotions. I'm grateful to Obama for my new health insurance, my public option,

but so angry it's still unaffordable for so many, including my friend who remains uninsured and uninsurable. For that reason, I feel selfish celebrating my newfound insurance, but celebrate I must for giving me a chance to beat cancer.

The insurance I will have starting 10/1 thanks to him is truly like the public option most Americans supported. It's more expensive at this point because there are none of the subsidies that will purportedly kick in in 2014 (barring ReTHUG killing the Affordable Care Act). Once the huge deductible has been met, it has none of the niggling aspects of most private insurance policies -- no copays, etc etc. On top of that, it covers specialty drugs (I have 3 very expensive ones) up to $100,000/year! Most private insurance policies don't come close to that. In short, it's an excellent policy compared to many these days and what I envisioned a public option to look like.

I have multiple preexisting conditions precluding me from getting any individual health insurance policy. Two of them, multiple sclerosis & chronic kidney failure/disease, doom me from the outset, as do the rest of them. I've been excluded from Medicare via an unsurmountable loophole (and yes, I've consulted 3 different attorneys....a couple of assholes on DU called me a "fool" because of this.....thanks so much, assholes.....you know who you are).

And now I add to that my recent diagnosis of ovarian cancer, the kind that killed my mother just 7 years ago. Oh joy!

Two things led to me being a newly insured person as of October 1. One was the cancer diagnosis and two was NC finally joining the federal high risk pool.

I've been living incredibly frugally on my savings -- my IRA and some other savings that were barely enough to keep me going into old age. Well, as of a cancer diagnosis, everything changed and I'm cashing in my chips now, so to speak. I'm taking monies I had allocated to get me through my 70s and beyond and spending it now at age 55, buying myself an insurance policy I'd otherwise not be able to afford rather than save it for some chimera of a future when I'm 85!

And, thanks to Obama, I got a new insurance policy {i]with diagnoses of MS, CKD & cancer and others. As a matter of fact, the requirements for the policy were being turned down for health insurance (they actually accepted me without that.....BCBS did turn me down, but only after I'd been accepted in the federal plan) & having preexisting condition(s). I have a massive deductible but after that, everything will be covered 100%! And adding in the cancer diagnosis didn't change the monthly fee one iota, remarkably enough. The NC state high risk policy was truly unaffordable, even now, and precluded preexisting conditions for 6 months after taking the policy. I'd have been doomed. But, with the federal high risk policy, I'm covered. My surgery is scheduled for 10/5 and I'll be able to undergo chemo afterward.

I have personally written to Obama to thank him. It is thanks to him that I can get treated at all -- without this, I'd have to lie down and die with this diagnosis. I don't have to do that now, and for that I offer him a huge THANK YOU!