Insurance and employment - what a joke.

I haven't posted here in a long time but I am not going to bore you with the various reasons why I have been hiding. My post today comes from someone who is at a very high risk of losing her job yet is in dire need of the insurance that she gets at her employer.

I have very good insurance with my employer. Its not free by any means but it isn't a huge chunk of my paycheck and from what I have gotten out of it, it has been worth it. However, with the risk of losing my insurance and losing my ability to have chemo treatments is a HUGE worry for me. What happens if I lose my insurance? Well, I stop my treatments (as they are roughly $50,000) and that means my disease progresses to full AML and with the inability to pay for that treatment, it means death. Sure it might take awhile to get to that stage but thats what will happen.

What am I doing about this? I am hoping for the best, working my ass off at work and hoping that I don't get my walking papers anytime soon. It also means that I have updated my resume and all job site accounts so I can start looking ASAP. I am very scared as its one thing when you are young, have very little responsiblity and have good health. Its another thing when you depend on your monthy paycheck and your insurance to such a degree that you would die without both. I knew that this could happen with the economy as bad as it is but I also thought we would be protected. However, work has done a few things to make me very concerned, let alone we are getting bought out next year so basically I only have a few options.

My reasoning for wanting to stay is because there are no guarantees no matter if I find a new job plus it could be 1-3 months or longer before I would get insurance at a new job. Plus lets not forget the whole pre-existing condition clauses that are there to prevent me from getting treatment even longer. Like I said its risky and dangerous no matter what route I take and I do like my job, I like what I do and I enjoy the people I work with most of the time. But I also know that the loyalty isn't there for either party and if I somehow found a better job I wouldn't turn it down in the hopes of making my current job work. I will probably start looking (not that hard) and see what I can find so at least I will not be starting from scratch if the worse happens.