In addition to this post, I work in a restaurant/bar & atleast half of the staff has has either an A strain of flu, a B strain of flu, or strep throat in the past 3 wks, It seems most are smart and take off anywhere from 3 to 5 days depending on the severity, however we have a few that can not afford-in their words to take off that long or even go to the Dr for that matter to find out what is wrong, so they in turn end up putting not only the staff but all of the customers at risk, & even though they say if you have it please stay home, the owner will not make them if they say they did not test positive for flu or say it is just a cold..and self diagnose, which several have done, only to have it get increasingly worse & end up putging them off way longer than they would have been had they took time and rested and got well- I realise evryone can not afford to miss several days of work especially when they are single moms or dads or have a family to support with nothing in the bank, but at the same time, I wish for people who fall just above poverty and below the allotted income in order to be able to purchase Healthcare by the cheapest means necessary,I really wish Texas had some type of plan for people like that, our job does not offer health insurance and by law they have found a way not to have to. They are considered a small business even though we have over 50 employees at each restaurant, they qualify to be exempt, & in the state of Texas anyone who is not pregnant, over 6, disabled, or have absolute zero income- & even then you may not get medicade or chip- big maybe- they are trying to implement changes like so many other states have but it hasn't happened yet and this has been ongoing, It would just be nice if they offered even a one time once a year pay for these people, considering it would save so many others from catching it- of course they do not! I understand for the people who have amazing careersand make enough money to be able to even qualify to purchase insurance you do not want your tax dollara covering someone who is low income and cannot afford to have health care or lose a day of work but to the people in that situation it makes all the difference in the world! We usually take up a collection between all the employess and it may add up to a few hundred and we give it to the person hurting financially...but we do it out of the kindness of our hearts because we know it could easily be us, I have talked to the owner about doing something lime this because after almost 11 yrs as his bartender he is lile my 87 yr old best friend..but he says too many would take advantage and then the ones lile me that always raise momey to help them wpuld never use it...I just wish we had better options so that so many people were not put right in the way of catching the flu, just because they wanted to eat out, or because we went to work like we were supposed to...I see both sides but I also see a never ending cycle...Just wishful thinking on my end, maybe in time Texas will reform our healthcate and it will become a possiblity for tge ones that have never had a chance