Although it's a well-established medical fact that men get breast cancer, Medicaid, the health insurance program for low income and disabled Americans, won't provide coverage for some of them. 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.
"I didn't even know men could get breast cancer," says Johnson, who was diagnosed after he went to a local emergency room for chest pain treatment. "I'm young. I didn't think anything bad could really happen to me."
Johnson, a tradesman who made $9 an hour, worked for a small outfit that did not provide health coverage. With a bad economy, he only worked about 30 hours a week, and couldn't afford private health insurance.
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."
Today, Johnson says he's feeling "pretty good" but is undergoing chemotherapy and may need surgery to treat his Stage II cancer. He says he doesn't know how he's going to pay for his care.