Thousands of the country’s sickest patients are scrambling to obtain new insurance coverage amid the ObamaCare rollout debacle.
While most uninsured Americans have until February to meet the March 31 deadline to sign up for the new national health plan, those who have pre-existing conditions in 14 states have to enroll by Dec. 15 because they have special high-risk coverage that is being eliminated Jan. 1.
“This is what keeps me up at night,” Tanya Case, executive director of the Oklahoma Temporary High Risk Pool, told Pro Publica.
“One lady expressed to me, ‘I’m in the middle of chemotherapy, and then I have to deal with this on top of everything else and quite frankly, I’m scared to death.’ That’s what she told me, and you hear that or a version of that quite frequently.”
Most people with pre-existing conditions will save money under ObamaCare because the law doesn’t allow insurers to take their medical status into consideration when setting rates.