Can I get Disease Specific Health Insurance?

The answer is yes. With the high cost of medical insurance those without the ability to purchase comprehensive health insurance may consider "disease specific" insurance as a discounted health insurance alternative. For example an individual may opt to purchase Cancer Insurance. However while it is possible to do so, most insurance experts advise against it. While it is true that treatments for a disease such as cancer can be very costly, cancer treatment only accounts for about 10 % of the total American annual healthcare budget. In fact, as costly as certain treatments can be for cancer or heart disease, no single disease or condition in and of itself accounts for more then a small fraction of the countries total healthcare budget. That is why insurance experts and healthcare professional agree that to ensure you family is protected against catastrophic medical expenses, you think about a major medical plan when looking for discounted health insurance, rather then trying to protect yourself against any one single catastrophic illness.

Such major medical or catastrophic health plans may cost more than say a Cancer Plan, but because of the greater degree of coverage, they are considered a far better value. These plans are made affordable by having high deductibles, but once the deductible is paid, they have very high maximums from 100,000 to maybe as high as 5 million dollars plus, and will cover you for any catastrophic illness including cancer. So who should consider major medical or catastrophic health insurance? Usually young people who are generally healthy but want to be protected against accident or injuries, and older folks aged 50 to 65 who have not yet qualified for Medicare, but are afraid of the high costs of disease like cancer or heart disease. Just how deeply discounted are such health plans? For example Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida offers a product called Essential that offers a 250.00 deductible, a cap of 1 million dollars and covers hospital, surgical, X-ray, MRI and other diagnostic expenses and can be purchased for under 50.00 a month depending on age, sex and physical condition.

Certain pre-existing conditions may prevent you from purchasing a major medical discounted health insurance plan; however keep in mind that you can never buy a disease specific plan for a disease that has been diagnosed before purchasing the medical coverage. There are other reasons why cancer or other disease specific policies are not a good idea. Some cancer policies will only pay for cancer care, and not for other conditions that arise due to the cancer. Pneumonia, diabetes and other conditions are not uncommon complications to cancer. A cancer specific health insurance policy may only cover hospitalizations due to the illness. Today, radiation therapy, chemotherapy or other cancer treatments may be given as outpatient procedures and therefore may not be covered under the terms of the policy. And finally many disease specific polices have time constraints - either long waiting periods - sometimes of several months, or time limits with benefits that expire after a two or three year period.