I haven't heard of any insurance policy that covers Prostate cancer. Does health insurance have any role in detecting such cancer?
Total Comments: 14
Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2010 05:37 am Post Subject:
Health insurance makes a great difference. If you have coverage you may detect diseases like prostate cancer much early. An early screening will surely help you go for an early treatment too.
Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2010 07:20 pm Post Subject:
Virtually all standard health insurance plans (major medical, HMO, PPO, EPO, POS) cover both screening and treatment for prostate cancer, one of the most successfully treatable cancers in men. In fact, a very recent study just published indicates that prostate is so treatable that in the earliest stages, surgery, radiation or chemotherapy are no longer the first efforts following a positive diagnosis.
Instead, physicians are now encouraged to do more frequent PSA screening exams of the patient, and only use the more aggressive interventions if the disease begins to progress.
Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2010 09:03 am Post Subject:
In fact, a very recent study just published indicates that prostate is so treatable that in the earliest stages, surgery, radiation or chemotherapy are no longer the first efforts following a positive diagnosis.
That's wonderful news for many of us who don't know about it! I'm sure it'll make our insurers think of it in a new perspective. I'm sure you could share a little bit about the alternative efforts through such initial stages.
Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2010 02:18 pm Post Subject:
The study recently reported simply encourages physicians to take a "wait and see" attitude, and simply perform more frequent PSA screening tests. If at any point the PSA results show a marked increase in the antibody level, then more aggressive treatment can begin. The average man lives at least 10 years beyond first diagnosis of prostate cancer, treatment or not.
The study suggests that the most aggressive treatments, surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, used too early, generally and unnecessarily leave men with side effects that will last the rest of their lives, and that the progression of the disease is not well defined from its earliest stages. Some prostate cancers may not even become worse than when first diagnosed.
The same sort of thing has happened with breast cancer in women. It used to be that a diagnosed malignancy meant radical mastectomy, often of both breasts simply as a preventive measure (can't get it if you don't have 'em). Some argue that such procedures were more misogynistic than preventive. Regardless, eventually, it has come to pass that physicians are now performing the least invasive procedures (aspirations, lumpectomies, targeted radiation) in order to save women from the lifelong "side effects" of having their breasts and other-disease-fighting lymph nodes removed.
Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2010 03:28 pm Post Subject:
This is indeed the great news that prostrate cancer is getting closer to becoming curable.
But what about patientss suffering from postrate cancer opting for health insurance, will they be insured?
Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2010 05:07 pm Post Subject:
The term is "prostate", not prostrate. It is not closer to becoming curable, it is curable, and now the FDA has approved a vaccine that apparently can prevent it from occurring.
However, like any other cancer, if it AFFECTS YOU TODAY, you will be declined for insurance. If you have insurance before you get the disease (any disease), it is most likely going to be covered.
Obamacare seeks to overturn the fundamentals of insurance by forcing insurance companies to accept persons with preexisting (AKA existing) conditions, or exit the marketplace. Most insurers will probably take the easy exit and all of their policyholders will no longer have coverage.
Some insurers will accept them, rate them highly substandard, and charge exorbitant premiums. The government will react and order premiums lowered. Then even those insurers will respond by exiting the marketplace, and the plan that could not make its way out of Congress and into the law, a single-payer system, will have to be implemented. To the delight of Ted Kennedy, dancing a jig in his tomb.
Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2010 09:00 am Post Subject:
Most insurers will probably take the easy exit and all of their policyholders will no longer have coverage.
I'm sure the policyholders will not find it easy to have another policy right away and they might need to reconsider a lot of things. Will these insurers ensure that their existing policy holders have some kinda coverage in place before they exit? If the insurers are forced to lower rates, I'm sure the insurance market will suffer heavily.
Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2010 09:24 am Post Subject:
Will these insurers ensure that their existing policy holders have some kinda coverage in place before they exit?
It is not a requirement under current law, and I doubt any mention of it exists anywhere in the thousands of pages of the whole bills Congress voted to pass without fully reading (and many times misrepresenting the parts they did choose to read).
Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2010 10:06 am Post Subject:
Well its tough situation and ultimately policy holders will end up losing if insurance companies discontinue those policies.
I think government should launch these policies where they would allow people to be covered with preexisting disease, instead of expecting private insurance companies to comply with them.
Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2010 02:11 am Post Subject:
I think government should launch these policies where they would allow people to be covered with preexisting disease, instead of expecting private insurance companies to comply with them.
A basic misunderstanding of the Obamacare plan. The government has created an onerous set of regulation by which commercial insurance companies will be forced to "play" or to exit the market. Some will likely play initially, charging higher premiums as they actuarily must, and then the government will respond to the complaints of those persons with preexisting conditions (not just "diseases") and order insurance companies to charge them standard rates, which is unrealistic, and that's when the players will exit the market, leaving it up to the government to cover these persons along with everyone else, there won't be enough money or resources to do that, taxes will have to be raised to cover the huge debt that will be incurred, and the economy will ultimately collapse under the weight of all this.
Or the government will just start printing oodles of more money which will lead to hyperinflation, which will result in the same end result.
The plan is unworkable in reality. Congress has relied on inaccurate predictions, projections, and chosen to ignore the will of the majority of Americans who said, repeatedly, "Don't mess with the system."
And the solution would have been to deal with the 40,000,000-50,000,000 who have no health coverage. Far more workable, and the only "reform" that was truly needed. A few billion dollars per year, not a trillion dollar deficit over ten years.
Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2010 05:37 am Post Subject:
Health insurance makes a great difference. If you have coverage you may detect diseases like prostate cancer much early. An early screening will surely help you go for an early treatment too.
Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2010 07:20 pm Post Subject:
Virtually all standard health insurance plans (major medical, HMO, PPO, EPO, POS) cover both screening and treatment for prostate cancer, one of the most successfully treatable cancers in men. In fact, a very recent study just published indicates that prostate is so treatable that in the earliest stages, surgery, radiation or chemotherapy are no longer the first efforts following a positive diagnosis.
Instead, physicians are now encouraged to do more frequent PSA screening exams of the patient, and only use the more aggressive interventions if the disease begins to progress.
Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2010 09:03 am Post Subject:
In fact, a very recent study just published indicates that prostate is so treatable that in the earliest stages, surgery, radiation or chemotherapy are no longer the first efforts following a positive diagnosis.
That's wonderful news for many of us who don't know about it! I'm sure it'll make our insurers think of it in a new perspective. I'm sure you could share a little bit about the alternative efforts through such initial stages.
Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2010 02:18 pm Post Subject:
The study recently reported simply encourages physicians to take a "wait and see" attitude, and simply perform more frequent PSA screening tests. If at any point the PSA results show a marked increase in the antibody level, then more aggressive treatment can begin. The average man lives at least 10 years beyond first diagnosis of prostate cancer, treatment or not.
The study suggests that the most aggressive treatments, surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, used too early, generally and unnecessarily leave men with side effects that will last the rest of their lives, and that the progression of the disease is not well defined from its earliest stages. Some prostate cancers may not even become worse than when first diagnosed.
The same sort of thing has happened with breast cancer in women. It used to be that a diagnosed malignancy meant radical mastectomy, often of both breasts simply as a preventive measure (can't get it if you don't have 'em). Some argue that such procedures were more misogynistic than preventive. Regardless, eventually, it has come to pass that physicians are now performing the least invasive procedures (aspirations, lumpectomies, targeted radiation) in order to save women from the lifelong "side effects" of having their breasts and other-disease-fighting lymph nodes removed.
Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2010 03:28 pm Post Subject:
This is indeed the great news that prostrate cancer is getting closer to becoming curable.
But what about patientss suffering from postrate cancer opting for health insurance, will they be insured?
Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2010 05:07 pm Post Subject:
The term is "prostate", not prostrate. It is not closer to becoming curable, it is curable, and now the FDA has approved a vaccine that apparently can prevent it from occurring.
However, like any other cancer, if it AFFECTS YOU TODAY, you will be declined for insurance. If you have insurance before you get the disease (any disease), it is most likely going to be covered.
Obamacare seeks to overturn the fundamentals of insurance by forcing insurance companies to accept persons with preexisting (AKA existing) conditions, or exit the marketplace. Most insurers will probably take the easy exit and all of their policyholders will no longer have coverage.
Some insurers will accept them, rate them highly substandard, and charge exorbitant premiums. The government will react and order premiums lowered. Then even those insurers will respond by exiting the marketplace, and the plan that could not make its way out of Congress and into the law, a single-payer system, will have to be implemented. To the delight of Ted Kennedy, dancing a jig in his tomb.
Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2010 09:00 am Post Subject:
Most insurers will probably take the easy exit and all of their policyholders will no longer have coverage.
I'm sure the policyholders will not find it easy to have another policy right away and they might need to reconsider a lot of things. Will these insurers ensure that their existing policy holders have some kinda coverage in place before they exit? If the insurers are forced to lower rates, I'm sure the insurance market will suffer heavily.
Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2010 09:24 am Post Subject:
Will these insurers ensure that their existing policy holders have some kinda coverage in place before they exit?
It is not a requirement under current law, and I doubt any mention of it exists anywhere in the thousands of pages of the whole bills Congress voted to pass without fully reading (and many times misrepresenting the parts they did choose to read).
Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2010 10:06 am Post Subject:
Well its tough situation and ultimately policy holders will end up losing if insurance companies discontinue those policies.
I think government should launch these policies where they would allow people to be covered with preexisting disease, instead of expecting private insurance companies to comply with them.
Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2010 02:11 am Post Subject:
I think government should launch these policies where they would allow people to be covered with preexisting disease, instead of expecting private insurance companies to comply with them.
A basic misunderstanding of the Obamacare plan. The government has created an onerous set of regulation by which commercial insurance companies will be forced to "play" or to exit the market. Some will likely play initially, charging higher premiums as they actuarily must, and then the government will respond to the complaints of those persons with preexisting conditions (not just "diseases") and order insurance companies to charge them standard rates, which is unrealistic, and that's when the players will exit the market, leaving it up to the government to cover these persons along with everyone else, there won't be enough money or resources to do that, taxes will have to be raised to cover the huge debt that will be incurred, and the economy will ultimately collapse under the weight of all this.
Or the government will just start printing oodles of more money which will lead to hyperinflation, which will result in the same end result.
The plan is unworkable in reality. Congress has relied on inaccurate predictions, projections, and chosen to ignore the will of the majority of Americans who said, repeatedly, "Don't mess with the system."
And the solution would have been to deal with the 40,000,000-50,000,000 who have no health coverage. Far more workable, and the only "reform" that was truly needed. A few billion dollars per year, not a trillion dollar deficit over ten years.
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