Lots of us want to know how the new Healthcare Reform Bill will impact cancer patients. Thanks to Kairol Rosenthal, we've got a few more answers. For the long version, check out Kairol's blog at http://everythingchangesbook.com.

A Few Items That Go into Effect The First- Year:

1. New help for some uninsured
People with a medical condition that has left them uninsurable (yep – such as the big C) may be able to enroll in a new federally subsidized insurance program. It will be established within 90 days. It’s not clear exactly how much you the patient would pay as your share, but there are maximum limits so you would not pay more than $5,950 per year for individual (that’s $495/month) or $11,900 per year for a family. Wow, anyone who thought this bill is dishing out free insurance to everyone is clearly wrong!

Some of you may live in states that have High Risk Pool Insurance. This federal program sounds very similar. It is private insurance offered to people with pre-existing conditions. The government pays part and you pay part. I was on a very similar plan in Illinois. The insurance was actually extremely good, Blue Cross PPO and had no limits on the docs I could see.

2. Discounts and free care in Medicare
This is not for us young adult patients, but applies to and is very important for seniors. KFF says: “The approximately 4 million Medicare beneficiaries who hit the so-called ‘doughnut hole’ in the program’s drug plan will get a $250 rebate this year.

3. Coverage of kids and young adults
The Kaiser Family Foundation says, “Parents will be allowed to keep their children on their health insurance plan until age 26, unless the child is eligible for coverage through a job. Insurance plans cannot exclude pre-existing medical conditions from coverage for children under age 19, although insurers could still reject those children outright for coverage in the individual market until 2014.” But what if a young adult between 19 – 26 has a pre-existing condition and is currently not covered under their parent’s insurance, will the bill enable them to get on to their parent’s insurance? If so, when does this kick in? I’m still not clear on this one and am waiting to speak to policy analysts about it. I’ll update this post with the clarification as soon as I understand more.

4. Tax credits for businesses
KFF says: “Businesses with fewer than 25 employees and average wages of less than $50,000 could qualify for a tax credit of up to 35 percent of the cost of their premiums.” Young adults are often work entry-level jobs that don’t offer health insurance. This provision should help increase the number of jobs available to us that come with benefits.

5. Changes to lifetime and annual insurance limits
All existing insurance plans will be barred from imposing lifetime caps on coverage. What’s this mean? Let’s say that currently your insurance states that over the course of your entire life they will cover no more than $500,000. Cancer patients can rack up a bill that size in six months and then are left with no coverage at all. This bill would make it so insurance companies cannot limit the dollar amount of care that you can receive over a life time.

6. Insurers can no longer cancel insurance retroactively
Let’s look at this scenario: You get diagnosed with cancer and have health insurance. Great you’re covered. Well in the past, insurance companies could say, “You know what, you went to your doctor’s two years ago because you stubbed your toe and thought it was broken. We’ve suddenly decided that your stubbed toe is a pre-existing condition, so we are going to retroactively cancel your insurance because of this ailment and we won’t cover your cancer care or any other care for that matter.” This bill will make it illegal for insurance companies to do that. And believe me, this happens A LOT to cancer patients.

We'll all learn more over the next few months, but there are definitely some gifts to us YA cancer patients in here. Stay tuned!