Myrna Rodriguez Previte, a breast cancer survivor from Cleveland, shares her story about her struggle to get health insurance. She was first diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 36 in 2003; she needed surgery and six months of radiation. As she tells it, she was facing a future of bills totaling almost $500,000 for treatment, and seven insurance companies turned her down because of her pre-existing condition. As a self-employed commercial real estate broker, she was responsible for her own health insurance but she couldn�t get coverage.
Fortunately for her, Myrna was finally able to get coverage through her new husband�s plan at work. And thanks to the Affordable Care Act, Myrna, and myriad women like her, soon won�t ever have to worry about an insurance company denying coverage for a pre-existing condition. Because starting in 2014, it will be illegal for insurers to deny coverage to anyone due to a pre-existing condition.
�Health care reform would have been the angel I was looking for,� Myrna says.
Currently, the law is providing coverage for nearly 50,000 people with high-risk pre-existing conditions through the Pre-Existing Conditions Insurance Plan. This means that previously uninsured Americans who were locked out of the coverage system because of a pre-existing condition can now get the care they need. And soon no insurance company will be allowed to discriminate against someone with a pre-existing condition.
Now, Myrna is an active advocate for women�s health with Amigas Unidas (Friends United), taking part in the bilingual peer-to-peer grassroots volunteer program where Latina women can educate other women in their communities about breast cancer � and how to get the care they need. �Things are changing with health care,� Myrna says, �which is positive for me, not only for my own story, but for the women I actually go out and fight for as well. The health care law is about women like me.�
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