Reply #12: I'm so glad for your sister & your family. Now, should she have to find a new insurance carrier....

[Hekate]

...she will discover that all future cancer diagnoses (gods forbid) and treatment will NOT be covered at all, because they will be considered a pre-existing condition.

Her health insurance is very likely job-related. If she's a minor, the job in question is her parents' -- meaning she will eventually age-out of their plan; also, your parents better not change jobs. If she's an adult, she and/or her husband better not ever leave her/his current job. Sure, there's COBRA, but the monthly premiums are a killer, and it's only good for 18 months or so.

I, too, have a good health plan through my husband's employment at the local college. When our son had a devastating accident 15 years ago we were eternally grateful for it -- but getting past the BS of letting remotely-located clerks decide whether completing his facial reconstruction was necessary was beyond my emotional capacity at that time, and I am also eternally grateful that my husband was able to do it.

We are now close to retirement, and due to my husband's health sometimes we think about whether he should leave early. But no. Not only does he love teaching, but we can't really afford to pick up the premiums on our own. We can't even buy another health care plan should we need to because both of us have so many "pre-existing conditions" that the exclusions would make it meaningless.

We are the fortunate ones, you and I. The difference is that I see that millions of people are not, and that millions more live with this fear in the backs of their minds: if I lose my job for any reason, I will lose my health care.

The US has a Third World health care delivery system. By that I mean that a person living anywhere in the world, no matter how primitive, can have access to the "best health care in the world" if -- and only if -- they have the money. It is outrageous that we, the proud USA, have sunk to that level.

Best of luck to your sister in her full and complete recovery. Your family has been through a very scary time -- may it all soon be in the past.

Hekate