Calling All Insurance Experts

[Flyman35]

We are thinking of selling our house and moving to Houston to be closer to Tom's kids and grandkids. That of course puts us near MD Anderson. If I leave my job which does not have a location in TX I lose my insurance which Tom is on. The only other thing he has right now is the Medicare part A.

Is cancer one of those pre-existing conditions that will not allow me to get a new policy with whatever company I start work with? Right now we have Aetna QPOS.Anyone with any insight please enlighten me.

Thanks,

Denise

[Ry]

I am no expert but I believe this varies somewhat by state. John switched medical insurance approximately 4 times during his illness and never did pre-existing conditions come up. I specifically asked about it when my company switched insurances and it was not a problem for any condition, not just cancer.

[recce101]

Denise, there's a new topic thread at OncTalk that is going into all the intricacies of Medicare including parts A thru D and supplemental insurance. If you want to ask OncTalk a question, just register -- many of us have the same username there as here:

http://onctalk.com/2008/04/08/medicare- ... parts-abc/

and

http://onctalk.com/2008/04/09/medicare-part-d/

Aloha,

Ned

[Patti B]

Denise-

I may be facing the same issues. If my husbands company folds or gets sold like they think it will and a non-union company takes over, I have been told I will not be picked up. When I talked to our current insurance company about COBRA, they told they know of no other companies that would take me on. COBRA is only good for two years at the tune of 903.00 per month.

Will be very interested if you do find companies that will pick him up. I have been doing a lot of phone calling myself lately and have found out I can't get medicaire or medicaid so I have been in a tizzy over this.

Wishing you luck on this - Patti B.

[Maryanne]

If he is a veteran, he can look into the VA for supplemental insurance and prescriptions. I think it is pretty cheap. Worth looking into,

Maryanne

[Flyman35]

Tom has never been in the service so that is not an option. We did get lucky with COBRA once as his bypass was done when my COBRA with Motorola was coming to an end at full price of $900 a month. So in all his bypas only cost $1800 because I had full coverage with no deductibles. With the AAA repair I had just got him accepted on my new Aetna insurance with my curent job when he ended up having that surgery. So we got lucky twice I don't know if the 3's count in this. Now I will have to do some research.

Ned,

I will check out the Onc Talk.

Thanks, Denise