You can beat cancer. You can survive a heart attack.
But can you afford to pay for it?
by: Joseph Judah, Mutual of Omaha

Medical science has made some truly amazing progress over the last century. Americans are living longer, healthier lives and surviving diseases that only a couple decades ago would have killed them. That's the good news.

The bad news is that while survival rates for most diseases have jumped, so have the medical costs associated with that survival. In fact, according to a 2002 report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, Americansê health care spending soared 8.7% in 2001 ® the largest increase in a decade. And a study by the National Institute for Health Care Management stated that spending on drugs doubled from 1997 to 2001 ® rising from $78.9 billion to $154.5 billion.

But studies by the American Cancer Society indicate that the indirect costs of a critical illness can greatly outweigh direct medical costs. This leaves many who suffer critical illnesses like heart attacks, cancer or strokes to pay the indirect costs of survival ® costs not covered by their health plans like deductibles and co-pays, treatment outside a provider network and lost income ® on their own.

It is a far bigger problem than most people realize. These indirect costs can add up quickly. If you're not prepared financially, it's almost like being punished for surviving. Unfortunately, most traditional insurance plans just don't cover these expenses.

Health insurance pays for things like doctor bills, surgery and traditional treatment, while the insured is responsible for co-pays, deductibles and non-covered procedures. Disability insurance replaces a person's monthly income, but only a portion of it ® and benefits don't usually start until after a 30- to 90-day waiting period. For life insurance to pay benefits, a person has to die. And while there are a few "specified disease" policies out there, they pay benefits only for the disease specified.

Critical illness insurance ® a product relatively new to the U.S. market ® fills this protection gap. It pays a cash benefit to a policyholder when they are diagnosed with one of several covered critical illnesses like c ancer, heart attack or stroke. The money is paid with no waiting period. And unlike traditional health insurance, it pays directly to the insured.

Itês money you can use any way you want, right when you need it most.

Many Americans will have to face a critical illness in their lifetimes. According to the American Cancer Societyês 2002 Cancer Facts and Figures report, men in the U.S. have a 1 in 2 lifetime risk of developing cancer, and U.S. women a 1 in 3 risk. Critical illness insurance gives them a way to pay for it.

The bottom line is, people need critical illness insurance. Once you understand the financial consequences of getting life-threatening cancer, having a heart attack, going blind or suffering kidney failure, there's no way you wouldn't want to protect yourself and your family from these costs.

Did you know?

• If we were living 100 years ago, by the time weêve reach age 45 half of the people that grew with us would be dead.

• Today in the U.S. ® every day 4000 heart attacks, 2000 strokes and about 4000 of some form of cancer.

• Today in the U.S. about 58,000 people are suffering from some kind of a disease that has to do with the blood vessels or the heart. Another words, 20% of the population ® a heart attach is waiting to happen. At the same time there are survivors: 14,000,000 from heart attach, 8,000,000 from cancer and 4,000,000 from stroke.

• Studies show that people with income of above $100,000 recover faster than those with less than $100,000 due to the fact that they donêt have the same financial stress.

• A year ago a million and a half were diagnosed with cancer, one generation ago they would have been sent home to die.

• One of the reasons that people get cancer today is because they live longer; when Alexander the Great died in the year 223 BC, life expectancy was less than 40. In the last 100 years people live much longer ( we see many reach 100 years of age and more). Why? What were the causes of death? For example, influenza and inflammation, today after the penicillin was invented we donêt here much of such deaths.