Cancer and individual health insurance
Periodically, our experts at healthinsuranceinfo.net receive questions from consumers who are looking for guidance in the health insurance market. This question came to us recently.
Question: I am a 27 year old with cancer. Can I buy individual health insurance?
Answer: It depends. Insurers in the market are likely to turn you down, unless the law requires them to sell you coverage. However, depending on where you live and other circumstances, laws may require insurers to offer you an individual policy. If that is the case, it will also be important to know whether other laws limit what you can be charged for health insurance and whether your existing medical conditions will be excluded from coverage.
In a few states individual market insurers are required to guarantee issue all products to all residents year round. In these states, an application with cancer must be issued an individual policy just like everyone else.
In a handful of other states, Blue Cross/Blue Shield or other insurers must offer guaranteed issue coverage to all residents.
In addition, you will also want to get information about COBRA, state continuation coverage, state high-risk pools, association health plans, public programs (such as Medicaid), and other possible sources of health coverage.
For more information about accessing individual health insurance coverage, see our Consumer Guides to Getting and Keeping Health Insurance, available at healthinsuranceinfo.net.