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I have several chronic conditions, all of which are wildly expensive, including Type 1 diabetes since age 10. I have lived my whole adult life in fear of benefit caps, sudden coverage drops, randomly denied claims from people at my insurance company who have no medical knowledge – and as a person employed in the health care industry, I’m one of the lucky ones who has access and knowledge beyond what most people have.

But that also means I witness many other tragic situations in which patients I serve can’t get help. This month, when my new insurance card arrived in the mail, I compared it to last year’s – somethingI always do, because if the old card is exactly the same as the new card (and they never have the current year printed on them), I’ll just save the old card in case I need a spare.

But this year, I got to cut up last year’s card with glee – the old one had the phrase “Annual Benefit Limit $10,000” (a number which my annual care could easily exceed, and has), and the new card doesn’t contain that phrase, because a little bit of humanity actually went into our lawmaking last year. It’d be a shame to remove that little bit of humanity and leave people like me in the lurch again.


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