The State of Health Insurance for the Self-Employed

For the last year, I’ve been battling a recurrent staph infection (also known as cellulitis) that just won’t give up and go away.  On Friday I went to the doctor for an antibiotic prescription, and by Saturday was feeling the adverse side effects that I was warned about by the patient education sheet provided by the pharmacy.  My boyfriend likened my symptoms to a bad case of food poisoning, and having never had that, I couldn’t relate, but I do know I haven’t been in this kind of pain or this miserable in many, many years (think of nails raking the inside of your colon and you’ll get the general idea).

Long story short, I took myself off the strongest of the two antibiotics (which also happened to be the most expensive) and am just taking one.  I’ll try the next one by itself when the first runs out and see if I fare any better.  It’s a sad situation when the cure is worse than the disease.  And my lovely doctor was of no assistance — his nurse simply told me that I’d have to come in again (and pay full fare for another office visit) in order for me to tell him my symptoms and for him to write another prescription.  I was livid (well, as livid as I could be, considering how lousy I felt) and said that was highway robbery, considering I’d waited 1.5 hours for an appointment in which the doctor gave me less than 60 seconds of his time. This doc has just landed on my "quack" list, and seems to be much more interested in collecting fees than caring for his patients.

The state of Texas is near the bottom for having the greatest number of uninsured residents.  Unfortunately, I’m one of those, as the prior two health insurance policies I’ve held either continued to increase dramatically in price (without having any claims against it) or didn’t pay the claims submitted to it, and I subsequently canceled them.  Those who are self-employed as solopreneurs find it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to obtain reputable health insurance as a one-person business.

There has GOT to be an answer to the health insurance crisis in this country.  Perhaps moving to Canada where they have national health care is a viable option..)