Has your career path been influenced by health benefits?

In my case, it's a cut and dry 'yes'. An entrepenurial opportunity came my way over 10 years ago that I would have enjoyed but I passed on it because of the lack of benefits. I know a lot of factors go into career choices, but I'm curious as to how much our health care system has affected people.

I would retire if I could take my health care benefits with me.

Would be nice to have the freedom to make those sort of choices without health care involved. Whether it be retiring or taking a stay-at-home job (or one with flexible hours) after having a baby. The Europeans really do have better lives in a lot of ways.

I just sort of fell into it. The whole rock star thing wasn't working out and I had to do something to make money.

I have a family that needs it's healthcare.

Just fascinated to find out how much health benefits drive our career choices...

in a lucrative Architectural firm. He was 34, and was offered a partnership..a deal he would have loved to pounce on. We had a lovely home we enjoyed, had friends & loved living in Olathe, Ks....but

we had a 4 yr old with serious medical needs and whose doctors & multiple surgeries were in Rochester, Mn (Mayo Clinic)..

The company my husband worked for at the time was a national company (a subsidiary of Weyerhauser) and we desperately needed the medical insurance. The company that wanted my husband was a small firm, and their insurance carrier said "thanks, but no thanks". Since there were at least 3 or 4 multi-week stays in Minnesota every year (usually 5-6 weeks in the hospital), there was NO way he could take that offer.

So we hopscotched across the country, every time they said "jump"..we had to say "how high?". We were in Indiana from 70-77, and from 77-80 they moved us to Olathe, Ks, Denver,Co (where we lost our shirts in a 15.8% real estate market on an 8 month long tour of home-ownership from hell)..then to Belen, Nm, then to Corona, Ca.

The last straw was when they wanted to move us to San Mateo...on $24,500 a year.. Since we were in Calif, there was a program we could enroll our son in , that had a ceiling of $1500 per year out-of-pocket medical expenses, and our local doctor had been trained at Mayo Clinic, under the doctor we saw for 8 years, so we stayed put, and cut loose on the insurance.

Everyone but our son was coverable at my husband's new job.. It irked our son to see the envelope plainly marked "California Crippled Children Services". He would always say, "Mom, I'm not crippled"..:(