Health Insurance Question

[jjaarons]

I am 55 years old on watch and wait. My counts are slowly rising over the last year. I am the primary breadwinner in my family. What can I do for health insurance if I need treatment, become too sick to work, and lose my health insurance? I am too young for medicare and make a reasonable income for now. What options do I have? Not sure Obamacare would be a good option since very few providers accept it. Any thoughts??

[Hidden]

Slow down... you are painting a worst case scenario. These days a CLL specialist can better define the sub category (for want of a better word) of CLL via genetic testing. This will provide insight as to when you may need therapy and what therapy will work best. This will give you a reasonable forecast as to whether you will become too sick to work or just have a treatable chronic illness that will not prevent you from working.

[jjaarons in reply to Hidden]

Working on that now. So far I am 13q14 and mutated. But my counts are slowly rising. Just want to be prepared. Thanks for your response

[virdieblue]

One of the comforts of Obamacare is that you can't be turned down for pre-existing conditions.

[thompsonellen]

If your employer employs 20 or more people they need to offer you cobra which lets you pay 2% more for your current plan. That will over you for awhile.

But don't assume you won't be able to work. I still do even though flying to OH for my clinical trial. I would save my vacation days and make sure I saved enough to go out of pocket on the cobra. Even if you can't work you won't be off that long.

[jjaarons in reply to thompsonellen]

Thanks

[johnl]

I went on the Medicaid part of Obamacare 6mo ago when I quit my job and am waiting to be old enough for Medicare. At that time I switched from a community hospital Hem/onc to one of the best CLL specialists in Chicago who runs the CLL clinical trials for Northwestern University. I call that trading up. Also if you can't work you can get on SSI disability which will then put you on Medicare.

john

[jjaarons in reply to johnl]

I didn't know that. Thanks

[bobbatt]

I made a visit to the SS office. They said that I would probably qualify for disability but there is a 5 month wait before the first check. I was under Ohio Medicaid when I was first diagnosed because I was laid off and looking for work. They paid for everything I needed. I never saw a single bill and never was turned down for any of the testing and tests.

[jjaarons in reply to bobbatt]

That sounds good