Antibiotics should not need a prescription
There definitely needs to be an overhaul of health care as we know it. For one thing, doctors have too much control over our lives. If we get an infected cut, we have to go to the doctor and get a prescription for antibiotics. If we get a sinus infection, we have to go the doctor and get a prescription for antibiotics. If we get a sore throat or ear infection, we have to go to the doctor and get a prescription.
Why don’t we eliminate this need to go to the doctor to get a prescription? By that, I mean why don’t we eliminate the middle man, the doctor? Antibiotics are not dangerous drugs. They could nip infections in the bud instead of allowing the infection to linger on and on because either you don’t have health insurance or no money for a copay if you do have insurance.
If we could just go to the pharmacy, preferably the ones that now offer free antibiotics, and get the antibiotic without a doctor’s prescription, it would save millions of dollars in insurance costs, pain and suffering on the part of a patient, and it would free up emergency rooms for people who have real emergencies. After we have tried the antibiotic and you still are sick, then you could go to the doctor.
I think we as citizens and patients need to take back the control over our lives instead of allowing doctors to control our lives. Let the people have a say in their own health care. We do not need doctors to write us a prescription for a simple antibiotic. I am not talking about the more potent antibiotics that are only administered in a hospital setting. I am talking about simple penicillin, Amoxil, Bactrim, etc. If a person has a question, they could always ask the pharmacist.
Ohio is now contemplating whether to make medical marijuana legal. If marijuana is made legal, surely antibiotics should be legal to obtain without a prescription. If marijuana makes sick people tolerate their chronic pain better, I am all for it. Marijuana is no worse than OxyContin and it is legal and habit forming. But here we go with the control issue again. Marijuana legal with a doctor’s prescription.
But the marijuana subject is another issue entirely and my issue is with free antibiotics without a required prescription.