In support of childhood cancer awareness month, I humbly ask for your support in making sure ALL children and adolescents have access to quality cancer care treatment despite their insurance plans. 

My 15 year old son was diagnosed with Papillary Thyroid cancer over the summer. And although doctors gave my son a good prognosis, as a parent, this is something that is extremely stressful and scary for any family to go through.  Worrying about whether insurance will cover treatment or not having access  to quality cancer care, compounds the stress the family experiences and also determines the quality of life a child will have. 

Because I am self employed, I do not qualify for a PPO health insurance plan and therefore had to settle for marketplace insurance for my son and I. I’m not sure if you’re aware but the individuals on marketplace insurance are very limited to which doctors they can go to. I understand, as a provider myself, in order to stay in business some plans do not make sense business wise and therefore are not accepted.  However, more needs to be done to give families the freedom to choose which doctors they can go to when it comes to treating childhood cancer; it can determine the child’s quality of life or whether they beat cancer or not. We were blessed to have been approved to see the oncologist and surgeon our PCP recommended despite the insurance we have, but it wasn’t easy and that’s not always the case for everyone. 

Therefore, I ask that you help me in making sure our elected officials are working to ensure all insurance plans make quality cancer treatment available to ALL children and adolescent and/or give people who are self employed access to PPO plans. We have the number one cancer treatment center in the nation, right in our backyard,  and our children should have access to it without any hold ups. I thank you for your time and with your support I hope to see progress in this area.