preventative medicine
How Can You Get Health Insurance if You're American with a Pre-existing Condition? Live Long Enough.
Italy, Veneto, Padua, Scrovegni Chapel. Scenes from the Life of Christ of Raising of Lazarus. Via Getty Images.
This Sunday is an important milestone for me. It's the day I no longer risk losing health insurance.
I left my last job-with-benefits when I was 51 years old. I'd been commuting an hour and a half each day, and I was worn out. My husband had excellent health insurance, and publishing jobs were plentiful.
Six weeks after my job ended, however, the dot-com bubble burst and jobs everywhere started to dry up. In 2003, I discovered I had a great big pre-existing condition — a defective heart valve and an aortic aneurysm that would eventually require surgery. I became uninsurable except through my husband's employer (and mine, should I ever find another job).
And then in 2008, the year I turned 60, the whole economy tanked. I realized I was now entirely dependent on my husband's employer for health insurance, since I would probably never again have a job-with-benefit.