This draft written by Shannon and posted by her mom, Gretchen. I agree completely with Shan about the value of health insurance regardless of pre-existing conditions. When a fundraiser was started to help her with her medical bills, she told me that I didn’t understand that cancer treatments don’t cost what we think of as “real money”. She was right- one of her treatments cost $60,000 PER treatment. Oh, but Kaiser got a break and it only cost $40,000 per session! That’s not a course of treatment (like weeks or months) that’s each time she had an infusion. A course of treatment could easily cost over $1 million! But thanks to Kaiser insurance, she only had to pay a reasonable co-pay.

Yup, I’m getting political for a moment. Feel free to move along if you don’t care to read this. You probably write things I don’t care to read either.

So, I had cancer. Duh. What does this mean? It means that I am now the proud owner of a “pre-existing condition.” It means I have had the opportunity to see up close and personal exactly how whacked our health care system is (and how great it could be). It also means I’ve gotten to see how completely and utterly SUNK we would be without insurance, and without GOOD insurance.