“Almost seven years ago I had a seizure in the middle of the night.” Melanie Kabo was rushed to the hospital where doctors told her she had a mass in her brain. “Now five surgeries later I have grade three brain cancer,” she told NBC 7. The 43-year-old Carlsbad mother of four is self-employed so she and her husband have private health insurance.
They pay $600 a month and a $13,750-deductible, which they meet every year.
Kabo says hearing that the Trump administration may stop defending protections for pre-existing conditions in the Affordable Care Act is devastating for her family. The Justice Department argues those protections are part of an unconstitutional scheme to require health insurance for all people and says those consumer protections can no longer be justified.
“If I didn’t have health care insurance I’d be dead already or poor,” she said.
Insurance expert Craig Gussin says California has its own exchange and sets its owns rules.
He’d be shocked he says if protections were taken away.
“Politically it would be suicide for anyone who did it because of all the people who would lose it,” he added.
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The American Cancer Society (ACS) cancer action network isn’t so sure. ACS issued a statement that reads in part: “The decision by the Department of Justice to abandon critical patient protections is devastating for the millions of Americans who suffer from serious illnesses or have pre-existing conditions.”
“I’m lucky I live in California if that’s the case,” Kabo said. “What about people in other states? My heart breaks for them.”
