The news is full of speculation about what will happen if the ACA (aka: Obamacare) is repealed and what might replace it. Some of my MPN friends are feeling nervous - and rightly so.
We who have an incurable fatal disease like myelofibrosis are a serious expense to insurance companies. The drug I take twice a day costs $10,000.00 a month. If I were to undertake a stem cell transplant it would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of a million dollars.
I like to think I'm worth the expense - but I'm not sure the insurance companies would agree. So, they might well like an opportunity to limit their liability for me and my disease. They might like to deny coverage for what is now my pre-existing condition. They might like to drop me completely.
Friends in countries that have government run "single payer" insurance are horrified by the difficulties we Americans have in obtaining and keeping good coverage. My American friends are horrified by the raft of regulations that increase waiting times and limit care options to people in places with government provided health care.
I don't know what will happen - any more than anyone else. I suspect that one way or another there is likely to be a crisis. I much prefer the chances I have with private insurance, since market forces are likely to push them to continue to offer care to people like me. (After all we are a small minority and nobody would buy their expensive insurance if it did not cover any expensive care.)
I do not at all trust the government to make the decisions about what will be covered or not. Ours is a government that is complicit in the murder of tens of millions of unborn babies - particularly babies who were suspected of having expensive disabilities. Legalizing "assisted suicide" is (as the Netherlands has demonstrated) doorway to euthanasia. And who should be euthanized? Certainly it should be the people who are too expensive to keep alive - like me.
We who have an incurable fatal disease like myelofibrosis are a serious expense to insurance companies. The drug I take twice a day costs $10,000.00 a month. If I were to undertake a stem cell transplant it would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of a million dollars.
I like to think I'm worth the expense - but I'm not sure the insurance companies would agree. So, they might well like an opportunity to limit their liability for me and my disease. They might like to deny coverage for what is now my pre-existing condition. They might like to drop me completely.
Friends in countries that have government run "single payer" insurance are horrified by the difficulties we Americans have in obtaining and keeping good coverage. My American friends are horrified by the raft of regulations that increase waiting times and limit care options to people in places with government provided health care.
I don't know what will happen - any more than anyone else. I suspect that one way or another there is likely to be a crisis. I much prefer the chances I have with private insurance, since market forces are likely to push them to continue to offer care to people like me. (After all we are a small minority and nobody would buy their expensive insurance if it did not cover any expensive care.)
I do not at all trust the government to make the decisions about what will be covered or not. Ours is a government that is complicit in the murder of tens of millions of unborn babies - particularly babies who were suspected of having expensive disabilities. Legalizing "assisted suicide" is (as the Netherlands has demonstrated) doorway to euthanasia. And who should be euthanized? Certainly it should be the people who are too expensive to keep alive - like me.
