Last summer we experienced the French medical system. The care was incredible, the costs minimal; at least compared to the outrageous charges in the US. Doctors visits were $50. A specialist ENT initial visit $75, the follow-up visit with surgery even LESS, go figure. The cost of drugs minimal and we had NO insurance, we were paying cash since our parochial American laws won’t cover citizens outside the US. Keep us on the plantation. Heaven forbid a world view breaks out in America. It turns out that France is not unique.
CJ has had a much more serious encounter of the unwanted kind with the Australian health care system. It began when somehow our packed medications were left in Florida. We visited a practice we hadn’t been to for ten years. The doctor had no problem writing the three prescriptions and for a three-month supply. The cost of the doctor’s visit was under $100AUD and the three month supply of the three meds was super inexpensive for two of the meds and manageable for the third. The third was something rarely used in OZ.
And then his spinal stenosis decided to rear its ugly self. Doctors’ visits in Oz are timed but typically under $100 AUD. He had a MRI for under $300 AUD, total cost. That is charges for the MRI machine, hospital, staff, nurses, doctors reading the MRI and providing the information to my doctor.
He had a CT scan machine-directed spinal steroid injection for under $800 AUD. Check your last MRI bill. Check your last CT scan bill, even if you didn’t have an injection. They are in the thousands and you probably have more than one bill for each service.
So why the big difference between the US and the industrialized world. It is certainly not wealth. It is simplicity. When they have a health issue, they go to the doctor. It’s that bloody simple. They don’t worry if it’s a work-related injury, an accident, something someone else has caused or a natural health issue. The just get the medical attention and the drugs needed.
They don’t add the expense of getting lawyers involved to fight for their benefits. Health care is their right as citizens. They aren’t paying million-dollar bonuses to insurance company executives and partner’s in legal firms and the executives of the insurance processing firms. Those over-compensation, non-value-added parasites are not even in the equation. Citizens pay their ‘medical premiums’ (taxes), the Government pays the health care facilities and providers and its all good.
How can the US afford health care for all. There is more than enough money tied up in administering care and fighting for care to provide for better care at less cost. The casualties: jobs in the legal sector, jobs in the insurance industry, and jobs in the claims processing industry. The reason we can’t afford to provide health care as a basic human right as the other industrialized countries do is cash. It’s not the cash for medical services but the cash that lines the pockets and campaigns of politicians.
Imagine how great we could really make America again if our elected representatives really worked for us and not themselves and big business lobbyists.
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