Last year, I had a health crisis and was diagnosed with a chronic condition that I will battle for the rest of my life. Because it was not discovered until it made me very ill and caused me severe pain, I tried a number of medications and was hospitalized off and on until a surgery was able to be done which put me in a “remission” state.

I was hospitalized for a total of 42 days. The average rate per day can be estimated at 40,000 (probably more for the uninsured but hard to judge because insurance companies pay greatly reduced rates). The total hospital bill for those 42 days would have been 1.68 million dollars (and that's a fairly conservative estimate). This does not even factor in a fair number of ER visits, doctor visits, imaging tests, etc.

I am now on a number of medications but the main one that keeps my condition in check would run approx. $28,000 a year without insurance vs. the $1,200 I pay with insurance. This is for one expensive (but wonderfully useful) drug.

Can you imagine having to find an extra $30,000 or more in income to maintain one's current life AND pay for necessary medication? Even without a recession, one person (especially one who has been seriously ill) cannot find this sort of extra money.

I dream of the day that I don't have to worry about insurance coverage.

When I began reading this I was seriously considering moving to Canada. Everything just seems to make much more sense up there. But I guess I will wait it out a little longer to see if Obama and his team can really do some good for us freelance-wannabe's.