WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Angus King (I-ME) today stood beside Hannah Dorr, a native of North Yarmouth, Maine, to highlight how up to 17 million children with pre-existing conditions – including thousands in Maine – can no longer be denied health insurance thanks to the Affordable Care Act.

“The quiet good news is that literally millions of Americans for the first time have been able to access quality healthcare at a reasonable price, and it’s almost impossible to convey in words what that means to these families – people who have literally lived their lives with a cloud of not being able to have insurance to cover their children or themselves because they’ve had some healthcare issues in the past,” Senator King said. “Disease is no respecter of social class or economics or anything else, and that’s why we need to be able to provide this type of coverage to all of our citizens.”

Hannah Dorr, a 22-year-old native of North Yarmouth and a former intern in Senator King’s Washington, D.C. office, joined him to share her story of how her pre-existing condition has impacted her life. At the age of 16, Hannah was diagnosed with a rare, progressive, genetic heart disease called Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Dysplasia, or ARVD, but thanks to the Affordable Care Act, she is now able to stay on her parents’ insurance until age 26 and cannot be denied health insurance coverage because of her heart condition.

“I think the scariest part for my parents was the uncertainty of how I was going to afford insurance later in life with a preexisting condition. For me, going into the individual market before the Affordable Care Act would mean astronomically high premiums and cost-sharing that would be outside of my means, and caring for my disease would fall by the wayside,” Hannah said. “The Affordable Care Act not only allows me to stay on my parents plan until I'm 26 – a plan that gave me access to the top doctors – but gives me the certainty that there is an option for me, should I no longer be covered by employer-sponsored insurance.”

“I consider myself lucky that my family had top of the line insurance that gave me access to the incredible team of doctors that cared for me and did not send my family spiraling into debt, and for the friends and family that helped pay extra costs such as travel expenses by creating a charity in my name: Hearts for Hannah. But most of all I consider myself lucky that no matter what uncertainty there is in the future, there is now certainty that I will be able to find insurance within my means because of the Affordable Care Act,” she said.

Since 2010, because of the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies have been prohibited from denying health coverage for the up to 17 million children with pre-existing conditions such as cancer, asthma, or diabetes. According to recent statistics from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, approximately 65,000 children in Maine have some type of pre-existing health condition. Starting in 2014, insurance companies will also no longer be able to deny coverage for adults or charge anyone higher premiums based on health status or history.

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