If you have been diagnosed with cancer or any other kind of serious illness you should educate yourself on your health insurance rights.

You should also know about a federal law which can protect your current health coverage when you move from one employer's group plan to another (e.g. your employment is terminated and you find a new job with a different health plan). It's called the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPPA for short.

The purpose of the law was to help people who were fearful of changing employers because they depended on the employer's group health plan. It also helps you if your current employment is terminated and you start a new job with a different plan, but you want to keep the same type of coverage you had before. HIPPA basically helps you when you move from one group plan to another.

An important item for cancer patients to note is that HIPAA states that group health plans cannot deny your application for coverage based solely on your health status. It also limits exclusions for pre-existing conditions.

HIPAA also specifies that you cannot be denied group health insurance because of mental illness, genetic information, disability, or claims you may have filed in the past.

If you had a group plan but then lost your job and are still unemployed, then another federal law (Cobra) helps you keep those benefits. With Cobra you can keep your benefits if you are between employers, but you have to pay for it yourself.

An excellent online resource for health insurance-related issues is insure.com. Below are links to three articles at insure.com.

Articles at Insure.com