At a rally for health insurance reform Tuesday in Washington, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius discussed a new report highlighting the insurance hardships faced by people with cancer.
Sebelius joined NCAA basketball coaches, the American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network and members of Congress at the rally.
The report, “Fighting Back Against Cancer: Health Insurance Reform and Cancer in America,” indicates that in 45 states, when a person with a health condition such as cancer tries to buy health insurance through the individual insurance market, insurance companies can charge higher premiums, exclude coverage for certain conditions or even deny coverage altogether because of the pre-existing medical condition.
Rising healthcare costs are leaving a growing number of Americans either uninsured or with insurance that does not provide the coverage they need and deserve – especially the 11 million Americans with cancer, according to the report.
Cancer patients, even when in remission, are unlikely to find meaningful insurance coverage in the individual insurance market, the report said. It said 11 percent of individuals with cancer said they could not buy health coverage because of their illness.
A recent survey estimates that 72 million, or 41 percent, of non-elderly adults have accumulated medical debt or had difficulty paying medical bills in the past year, and 61 percent of those with difficulty had insurance. Any medical event, like a cancer diagnosis, could place a person at risk of taking on a potentially devastating financial burden, even if they have health insurance.
Research indicates the employer-sponsored insurance market is an increasingly unstable source of coverage for Americans, as fewer employers are offering coverage. From 2000-09, the number of firms offering health insurance coverage to their employees declined from 69 percent to 60 percent; for firms employing less than 10 workers, the decline was even greater – from 57 percent to 46 percent. And one in six Americans with employer-sponsored insurance in 2006 lost that coverage by 2008.