When you get cancer, your life is threatened. When you treat cancer, your finances are decimated.

The cost of treating Corinne’s cancer has been about $125,000. If the treatments have worked and no cancer shows up over the next five years, the cost of regularly monitoring her condition will approach $100,000 before she’s considered cancer free. If the cancer recurs, we can expect to be billed another $100,000 or more for that treatment. We're grateful for the high quality health care we have, but this is an expensive disease to treat. For instance, chemotherapy sessions average over $7,500 each: almost $50,000 over the entire course. A set of scans to check progress is about $10,000. Radiation therapy is more than $20,000.

I am retired, but am not old enough to qualify for Medicare. Corinne was fired from her job on the day of her cancer diagnosis. The median American family income is about $42,000; it’s about $35,000 in our state. With neither of us working, living on my small pension and investments, ours is about half that. I must pay about $300 a month for my own health insurance. Corinne qualified for COBRA coverage from her previous employer, but only for 18 months; that costs another $300 per month. Corinne also was allowed to convert her $100,000 life insurance policy from work, but that costs us over $3,000 a year. Including the cost of my life Insurance, our income doesn’t cover the premiums.

We are fortunate that Corinne’s health insurance not only has paid over $60,000 of the costs of treating her cancer, but also has required “preferred providers” to discount their charges by about $30,000. When Corinne’s COBRA coverage rights expire, though, we will be liable for all the costs of her treatments if she has no new insurance at that time. And, without the benefit of an insurance company forcing discounts, we will be paying the full "sticker costs" on medical services.