Terry Arnold, Founder of The IBC Network Foundation, wrote a note to her kids that we wanted to share here:
I wanted to send this out because it’s almost time for open enrollment. You may have an option to get an additional cancer policy on top of your medical insurance policy.
But if you have the option to get what they call a “cancer policy” which is a secondary policy that pays out directly to the policy holder, should there be a cancer diagnosis I would strongly urge you to do so.
Most of you have probably heard of Aflac and that is the most commonly known one as they advertise so aggressively but there are a list of ones that are highly respected. Personally I have one for your dad and I through Mutual of Omaha. I don’t know that there any better than Aflac that was just the one that I went with.
I have many friends who had an Aflac policy prior to their diagnosis and said it was the difference in bankruptcy or not. They were shocked at what a difference it made and these were people who thought they had good insurance, decent savings and we’re not living in excessive debt.
The following is a link for you to consider for review. https://www.investopedia.com/best-critical-illness-insurance-5075560
I don’t want this to turn into a typical debate about what is or isn’t right in our medical care or insurance world. However medical debt is 2nd on the list of reasons for bankruptcy in the US. I can understand how that could be true from my own personal experience.
My treatment was so expensive, we let go of $20k pretty much right off the bat. And then I was spending $450 a month in 2007 in gas and parking alone, (and we only lived 20 miles from the hospital). Every visit had a copay of $50. I remember one day I had 7 different visits with 7 different copays. I came home crying because I had spent our month’s grocery money in that one day. I gained weight, needing new clothes. I remember having to buy 3 different sizes of shoes because I never knew morning to morning what size my feet would be, because my feet would swell off and on. These were just small things but it nickeled and dimed us pretty hard. Combined with the fact that I had 285 appointments in 365 days, making me not work, or home to cook or do other things, which also led to more expense.
Please don’t get me wrong. I am not complaining. I am a very grateful and very blessed woman but we had savings and we had good insurance but it was very hard to recover from those expenses.
Also many of these policies will cover your children for free until they’re 18 so that is also something to consider.
And just for consideration when you have cancer, depending on the state you live in, you can’t get one of these policies for a period of years. In Texas it happens to be 5 years in some states it’s as much as 10 yrs, it varies state to state.
So this is just something that I want to share with you because I am watching friends right now, greatly struggle, who thought they were well prepared for life. Again I don’t want to get into a political debate because there are so many laws governing our medical care it’s going to take a long time to untangle this and the meantime we have to deal with the reality that we have in our life today.
Hope always,
But I think it’s smart to be prepared.
Love,
Mom
