kat, my advice is to get insurance. At our age, things start to happen ;-) and the insurance companies have a way of "cherry picking" only young and healthy members who only pay premiums and then of dumping sick people. But what most people don't consider...they don't take on new people after the age of 40 or so unless they are forced to. Your case is different, however, since Rog has insurance.

Friends of ours moved to Colorado last month and were told to wait until they got there to get insurance instead of trying to fill a 2 month gap while unemployed here in KY. Our insurance system is an unbelievable mess, and until more people in other states (younger folks especially) realize how bad things are, they won't change. Hopefully in 20 years things will be different, but that may not be soon enough for us.

For many years Hubby and I had double insurance coverage from both of our jobs. So naturally the insurance companies both stalled trying to make the other one pay. Then KY passed the birthday rule...the spouse with the first birthday in the year had the primary insurance. Still, the companies tried not to pay and the hassle was a constant fight. So we dropped his insurance, after being assured that my job was secure. (in the US at that time insurance was tied to employment) Three months later I lost my job. And his company wouldn't take us back, surprise, surprise. I got another job, but lost it also. This job had "self contained" insurance so when my 18 months of COBRA was up, they were more than happy to dump me. (especially since I'd been diagnose with MS in the meantime.) Of course with MS, no one would insure me or hire me. Out legislators thought this was highly unfair, so they passed a law which said insurance companies had to take sick people. So 16 of 18 companies left the state! One year I got on a state sponsored plan, but they went bankrupt and sabotaged the records. Then I got on Blue Cross (subsidized by the state) but they just raised my rates to $900 per month. Now I have another state plan which most doctor's offices have never heard of, and every claim is a fight.

I've heard of lawsuits in some states where a person (like happened to me) was told by a doctor that they did not have any chronic diesease, dropped or lost their insurance, then were diagnosed with something, and couldn't get insurance. Times are changing, but slowly.