Last month, Raymond Johnson, a 26-year-old single South Carolina man, discovered he was one of the estimated 2,100 men who are diagnosed with the disease each year.
Johnson, a tradesman who made $9 an hour, worked for a small outfit that did not provide health coverage.
Since he didn’t qualify for traditional Medicaid, he was urged by the hospital where he is receiving care to apply for help under The Breast and Cervical Cancer Prevention and Treatment Act.
This 11-year-old federal law uses funds from Medicaid for breast or cervical cancer patients who otherwise don’t qualify for Medicaid because their income is too high, explains Jeff Stensland, spokesperson for the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
The eligibility rules for coverage under the Act are complex, but Johnson met all criteria, except one: He isn’t a woman. “We want to cover this guy,” says Stensland, “but we simply can’t.”
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