by Kelly Cuvar

I was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer thirteen years ago.  I have never been in remission.  What I didn’t know then, as I started my adult life, was that I would have a pre-existing condition for the rest of my life.  The fact that I had cancer would be a hurdle made manifest in every aspect of my life; where I live, where I can get adequate care, and how to maintain continuous insurance coverage.

Surviving cancer would not just be managing the disease physically, which is hard enough.  The American healthcare system in general and my insurance providers in particular have been a greater affliction for me than cancer.  Every single financial and life decision I make revolves around maintaining my ability to get healthcare.  All of my life decisions have been mediated through my disease.

I am being absolutely honest–having to worry about insurance is worse than having cancer.  I am better able to deal with my illness and survival than I am when trying to obtain and maintain insurance coverage in the private market.  It is more stressful than any of the treatments I have gotten over the last thirteen years, or any of the consequences of those treatments.  What cancer hasn’t been able to do, our broken healthcare system has done:  forced me to deal with anxiety on levels I have never known before.

After working so hard on the passage of the Affordable Care Act, I realize we didn’t get what we wanted, but we got a few things that we need.  For a society that considers healthcare a commodity, we are getting closer to being able to celebrate the goal of a healthy society.  (The way I see it, the goal of a capitalized healthcare system is to make money; the goal of socialized medicine is a healthy society.)  No lifetime or annual caps on an insurance policy, and the most important thing in the bill to me, pre-existing conditions will be a thing of the past.  It will change my life.

Re-living the healthcare fight has ignited many feelings in me and my fellow activists.  We are proud of our work, and we stand by it.  We look forward to a healthy society, and we will always work towards that.

This speech was originally given on the steps of the Federal Court House in Foley Square, New York City, on March 26, 2012, the eve of the Supreme Court hearings on the Affordable Care Act. The Court will likely decide their ruling in June of this year.