Do you remember thinking about health insurance when you landed your first job? I sure didn’t. When I started working at a small event-planning company in Chicago, I was thrilled. The work was fast-paced, exciting, and paid me well. They didn’t offer health insurance, but I was in my early twenties, and felt healthy enough, despite a pre-existing condition from a college health scare. That condition made private insurance impossible to get, but I wasn’t worried.
When the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, that condition was erased from my health history. I thought I could finally get coverage and keep my dream job until I saw the cost. Even without that pre-existing condition, getting my own policy was too expensive. I had to make some tough decisions. To afford coverage, I needed a job with benefits. No one was there to guide me, but I got lucky. I landed in the health and benefits industry, where my HR representative sat down with me to explain my health plan options.
