29 Comments
Have the health insurance benefits offered by an employer ever caused you to accept a job or stay at a job that you otherwise would have preferred to leave?
You must be logged in to post a comment.
© 2023 T1D Exchange. All Rights Reserved.
I answered “other”. I was diagnosed 1 year ago and haven’t had to change jobs or consider. I did take a promotion within the same company.
I was hired at 19. At that time I wasn’t concerned about health insurance or pension. In fact I was mad they were taking money from me. Retiring after 36 years with my school district, I am thankful for both. Raising 2 T1D’s almost all my meds and medical devises were covered 100 percent and now being retired and newly diagnosed myself I am well covered with my health benefits and my pension.
As technology has progressed with diabetes management, I am now more aware of an employer’s benefit options. I am in the process of now reconsidering where work due to lack of coverage for pump supplies.
Being self-employed we paid a fortune for health insurance for many, many years—nice to finally reach Medicare age!
I’m an Other. I was diagnosed shortly before retirement so benefits weren’t as important as they would have been otherwise.
Insurance was through my husbands job as I was part time employed most of my life
We get health insurance through my husband’s work place. I’ve given some thought about what I’ll do when he retires in a few years and we lose his excellent coverage at a reasonable cost. As a self-employed individual, I’ve considered that I might need to get a job that offers health insurance benefits.
It would be a consideration. We have pretty good health insurance and my company pays 100% of my premiums. Another company would have to make a pretty good offer to overcome that.
The free market system overwhelmingly favors those with insurance. Paying for supplies is a key factor in staying, leaving, or accepting a job.
I am currently seeking new employment in hopes of better healthcare benefits. While leaving a job I enjoy.
I would have answered “Yes”, but answered “Somewhat” because I chose my career for health insurance and salary. Having already been a diabetic, health insurance was absolutely necessary. In regard to choice of employment, we lived in a rural area, without industry, except tourism. I chose to work in correctional services because it was one of the only good paying jobs with health insurance. I had no desire to work in that “industry”, but did so for 30 years to provide for my family and the health insurance.
My husband stayed past retirement age so that I would be insured
Early in my career I was declined for a loan that led to a teaching post because I was diabetic. They wouldn’t cover my costs
If I didn’t have access to my spouse’s benefits I would choose to leave the job I have
throughout my entire career never had health insurance
I stayed married for way longer than I should have because her employer provided great healthcare coverage.
I have always been covered by my husband’s insurance policy.
I chose other, as my husband mentions this often. I am on disability due to epilepsy and have a few other medical conditions along with T1D but the health care coverage through his workplace are his “golden hand cuffs”.
I have been looking around for a few years to try and find the best insurance plans to go along with medicare, but need help to find similar ones to what we currently have.
Yes I am retired now, but I went into law enforcement because my Dad told me to take the job this way I would always have health insurance and a pension. His reasoning was that if I got married and my husband was rotten,( I won’t use my Dads words) I wouldn’t have to stay married and still be able to support myself. The best advice I have ever gotten.
I have never had a job that offered affordable health insurance for me. I’ve always had to depend on my husband’s work insurance to provide my insulin and diabetic supplies. Now that my husband has retired and me already being on disability with Medicare, the supplemental medicare insurance combination is making things much more affordable for me.
N/A (Not Applicable) as I’ve never had a job that had health insurance benefits. (I live in the UK [United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland] where our health benefits are provided for by our NHS (National Health Service), which is funded via direct taxation of all working people. You CAN, of course, take out supplementary health insurance, payable by oneself, if you prefer ‘preferential treatment’ and/or quicker appointments, etc.)
I said yes because “Definitely” wasn’t an available option.
I have both left employers to work somewhere else because the new job offered better insurance benefits and while unemployed I have also turned down job offers exclusively because the offering employer said that there were no insurance benefits with the job.
Had I been allowed to continue working at the Walmart DC, I probably would have left them in favor of my current job because Walmart’s insurance was claimed to be some of the best available but it was high deductible coverage with a copay for literally everything as opposed to the insurance I have through my current employer were the only thing I need to get through my DME coverage is the Insulin Pump cartridges, and literally everything else is covered under my current Pharmacy Benefits and my pump infusion sets and a couple short term prescription medications I’ve been on over the past year is all I have to pay anything for other than the insurance premiums deducted from my paychecks.
Walmart’s employee insurance was more expensive, had a copay for everything, and was high deductible with a $2500 annual Deductible. My current employer’s insurance only has a $20 – $25 per office visit Doctor’s copay, a $70 copay for my pump infusion sets, and only has a $750 annual deductible! And my current insurance is less expensive than the insurance I had through Walmart was also.
I’ve been retired for the last 11 years. My last job was with the Federal Aviation Administration, a Federal Government job. Would never think about leaving!
I love the answers folks give to this question.
So, in the good ol’ days (which really weren’t), my dad suggested to me: Get some health insurance. Insulin was about a buck a bottle and insurance was about $10 a quarter. Anybody seen prices like that lately?
Prior to the American with Disabilities Act of 1990, employers could and did discriminate like crazy against type one diabetics.
Nowadays, the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, the hedge fund managers, the credit default swap managers, the large drug store chains, and the middle men called pharmacy benefit managers (PBM’s) own the health care casino, and we customers only pull the lever. Over, and over, and over again.
Having health insurance benefits offered was important.
I wish I hadn’t stayed. I ended up with Ulcerative Colitis as a result of all the stress the job caused.
I didn’t check NO but OTHER. I had just retired when I got my LADA diagnosis at age 66. I was already on Medicare and a supplemental insurance plan.
Many of the jobs had no insurance. I had to take whatever job I could get. At times my income was so low, I qualified for special state run plans providing just basic coverage. My last job with federal gov had pretty good coverage. Now I get benefits of Medicare. I advocate and lobby for Medicare For All, universal single payer, socialized medicine…whatever you want to call it.
My husband never went into business for himself so that we would keep his insurance while I was not working.