by Melanie Feliciano

Recently a friend of mine went to the emergency room after he sliced his hand with a knife. All he needed was a couple of stitches. He didn’t have health insurance.

When he arrived, he asked about how much the stitches would cost. The front desk clerk said she couldn’t tell him, that he would have to see a doctor in order to find out. But beforehand, they took his pulse. As he sat in the waiting room for three hours, he decided that his cut wasn’t deep enough to wait for a doctor. He walked out.

A month later, he received a bill for almost $1,000. Apparently, just for entering the emergency room, they can charge him just for taking up space.

Wha-wha-whaaat?????

It’s a racket, this whole medical industry. Being a renegade freelance writer, I have no desire to become part of our screwed up health care industry. Last year, I paid $200/month for Humana Health Insurance, and the administration was shoddy, and the dentist I visited straight up SUCKED. She filled one of my teeth and to this day, it is still sensitive if I chew on that side. I can’t wait to see my friend who went to the University of California San Francisco dental school, who used me as his guinea pig for his board exams. He is the only person I want looking into my mouth.

Regardless of my bad experiences with the US health care system, I know I need health insurance. So, I am starting to look into alternatives to purchasing my own individual plan. Apparently, there are writers’ associations that offer health insurance as a benefit to members:

The National Writers Association offers health and legal benefits to members who pay $65 annual fees.

The National Writers Union is the trade union for freelance and contract writers: journalists, book authors, business and technical writers, web content providers, and  poets. With the combined strength of nearly 2,000 members in 16 chapters nationwide, and with the support of the United Automobile Workers (UAW), the Union works to defend the rights and improve the economic and working conditions of all writers. It looks like they only offer dental and vision plans to members, however.

Editorial Freelancers Association are editors, writers, indexers, proofreaders, researchers, desktop publishers, translators, and others who offer a broad range of skills and specialties. The Entertainment Industry Group Insurance Trust (TEIGIT) offers health insurance to writers in Florida through CIGNA