Friday, June 15, 2012

How do you Balance Money and Your Health?

How do you Balance Money and Your Health?


As I am getting up this morning my mind was torn between writing this or not. Then it came to me, you all deserve the whole picture and the truth on how I managed my cancer. It started with fear of my life first. The steps to get where I am now took a lot of money and faith.

Money was hard to come by, my husband and I have been married thirty years and both have worked middle class jobs all our lives. We had health insurance for when someday it would be there for us. Well my fear has turned into anger. I am angry at our government programming us to believe that if we have insurance it will take care of our medical needs. This is far from the truth! They will pay for only what they want to pay for. For example if you have cancer; insurance companies here in the states will only pay for surgery, chemo and radiation. What if this is not what you want!! You are on your own.

This is what happened to me and almost everything we lived for as a couple went into my treatments. I have the quality of life, but with consequences. We have to regroup financially and start all over for just the simple things.

We need to be aware that if you have an illness like cancer where there is a danger of death and you choose to go outside the USA for other treatment, it is not considered an emergency to the insurance company. An emergency to them is to go through an emergency room. Also, if you pay extra for benefits of out of network it does not apply for out of the states. What good is the insurance if it does not pay when you really need it? When your live depends on it, it may not be there for you.

As passionate as I am on trying to change this, I am looking forward in the future to start a non profit organization to help the people in the same boat I am experiencing now. I want people to have a choice on what type of treatment that they would choose and not have to worry about where they are getting the money from. We had all our credit cards paid for except the business account and now all are maxed to the limit. We had to get bank personal loans and take money out of the retirement plan. This has lead to filing bankruptcy. The treatment is one obstacle to face financially, but the after care ~ the home program and the change of lifestyle is just as difficult. BUT ONE SHOULD ASK THEMSELVES WHAT IS THE PRICE OF YOUR LIFE! I do not regret what I chose and would never go back to getting the conventional way for the side effects are more dangerous then are told to us and it destroys your immune system. The knowledge that I have learned helped me to change how I am living my live.

We need to research more before deciding a type of treatment and it should be up to you and not the doctor nor the insurance to dictate what you should do.

THINK BEFORE YOU ACT. Help me change what the insurance is not paying for that will save your life. I am not asking for the procedures that are not covered under FDA, but I feel that they should pay for the hospital stay, lab work, scans and any other standard charges that are included in a hospital stay. If you are willing to fight for this change, please let me know.



 

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