In late 2015, Andy Edgerton was diagnosed with metastatic stage four pancreatic cancer. His doctor gave him three to six months to live.
But he started a new chemotherapy treatment and responded well to it, and in mid-2017, he’s still here. “I’m fighting every day,” says Edgerton, 39, a father of two who lives in Kansas City, MO. “Pancreatic cancer is terminal, so it’s really about extension of life. The game plan is, ‘Can we extend your life with all of these immune therapies?’”
Currently he’s on a different chemotherapy regimen with rougher side effects. The treatments are expensive, and he called his insurer to make sure everything was still covered.
That’s when he learned that his insurer—Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City—was dropping him. In fact, they were dropping everyone, pulling out of all individual Affordable Care Act plans in the Kansas City area in 2018.