And just to be clear in my response: I had "good" health insurance (luckily, but still ended up with many tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills).
But that didn't have anything to do with finding a job after I got better.
I understand that you took time off to recover and yes short term disability would have been ideal for that but that medical information should be private. Was it simply accounting for the time off that you took?
> Was it simply accounting for the time off that you took?
Yes, precisely. Even if you try to say something like "took time off for family reasons" or "ran my own company and contracted for a year", they seem to sense something's up. In fact, I think hiding the reason why I was off hurt me more than it helped, because people tend to assume the worst (ie, "I can tell this guy's hiding something, wonder what it was...maybe he was in jail!").
In the end, I only got interviewed by those places I was honest to about being out for medical reasons (and one of those places was where I ended up working). And just getting that handful of interviews was fairly challenging, given the supposed high demand for people like me (I have experience/expertise in a high-demand area).
But that didn't have anything to do with finding a job after I got better.