By Anita Youngkin, Director of Human Resources, National Women's Law Center

Over the years I’ve worked with some leaders/employees who suggested, some more strongly, that we base employment related decisions such as hiring, promotion, benefits, terminations, etc. on an employee’s health. One such manager who had fortunately always been healthy and hadn’t been impacted by access to health care and hadn’t faced issues with cost proposed that “sick” employees pay more of the health care premiums. Some of these “sick” people were simply pregnant. A few months after we moved ahead with our benefits plans without incorporating his recommended changes, he was involved in a serious accident. He returned to me and apologized for not understanding how an accident could impact his life in so many ways. He was grateful for his insurance and certainly did not expect to pay more due to anticipated long-term care for his injuries. Sometimes it takes an experience to change a person’s perception and you’ve done a great job of giving real life examples to impress upon us all how health insurance or lack thereof can impact our lives and the lives of our loved ones.

For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been pasting blog posts from NWLC staff about how they are affected by the health care law like this one and this one.  Stay tuned for more posts from our staff about their personal stories about what the health care law means to them.  You can add your personal story by joining our story blog here.

Cross-posted from WomenStake