Victimized by the coverage gap

The chemotherapy started Nov. 9, 2007.

"The medical insurance I had was pretty good," Daskus said. The problem, he added, came with his prescription coverage. Drugs he needed to control nausea, pain and acid reflux associated with chemotherapy were covered only slightly, he said, and many times he paid $100 or more out of pocket at the pharmacy.

For three pills of Emend, to control nausea, he paid $400, he said.

"You usually find out what's not covered when the doc gives you the prescription and you get it filled," he said. "Nine out of 10 times, the cash price is astronomical."

Daskus feels his employer treated him fairly. But ultimately he couldn't work, so he was let go.

By January, Daskus' short-term disability check from his job ran out, so he had no income.

Debra Daskus can't work, she said, because she suffers from six herniated disks. And she said it was a full-time job driving her husband to all his doctors and being a round-the-clock caregiver when he was so sick from the chemo.

With no income, bills began to mount. On top of co-pays and prescriptions, Dan Daskus was still paying $256 a month to remain on the company insurance plan, plus household expenses.

He blew through $4,500 in savings and started maxing out credit cards.

Collection agents called.

In the spring, Daskus let his insurance coverage through work run out and applied for Medical Assistance - care for the poor, financed by the state and federal government.

"The day I went over to that welfare office," Daskus said, "I never dreamed in my entire life I would ever see myself having to apply for something like that."

He said he'd always looked down on people on public assistance, figured they were lazy or scamming the system.

At least he had insurance, but still no income.

Daskus applied for permanent disability from the Social Security Administration. He'd been paying into Social Security since he started working. If approved, disability pay would be $1,300 a month, he said, enough to squeak by.

He was denied.

This burned him up.

"I was denied because their doctors felt I should be able to return to work by July [a year after his diagnosis], without even giving me an examination," he said in late summer. "But of course it's already August and I still haven't returned to work. I've got all these side effects from chemo - neuropathy in my hands, compression fractures in my spine, osteoporosis."

According to the Social Security Web site, a person with Hodgkin's disease can qualify for disability if he still isn't cancer-free a year later.

Daskus's chemotherapy, however, appeared to work, and in June, he was told he was in remission - the cancer was no longer detectable.