Cancer Patient Stuck with Higher Bills as Obama Pre-existing Condition Plan Runs Low on Cash

Coping with advanced cancer, Bev Veals was in the hospital for chemo this summer when she got a call that her health plan was shutting down. Then, the substitute insurance she was offered wanted her to pay up to $3,125, on top of premiums.

It sounds like one of those insurance horror stories President Barack Obama told to sell his health overhaul to Congress, but Veals wasn’t in the clutches of a profit-driven company. Instead, she’s covered by Obama’s law — one of about 100,000 people with serious medical issues in a financially troubled government program.

Raw political divisions over health care have clouded chances of a fix for the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, leaving families like Veals and her husband Scott to juggle the consequences. That’s not a good omen for solving other problems that could surface with “Obamacare.”

“You don’t advertise one thing and then give the customer another thing,” said Veals, 49, who lives near Wilmington, N.C. “I finally felt for the first time going through this cancer that I had something dependable, and somebody pulled the plug.”

Read the full story here: http://wapo.st/1856svN

Source: Washington Post