I’d like to know other non-US citizen’s opinions on your health care system are when you read a story like this. I know there are worse places in the world to receive health care, and better. What runs through your heads when you have a medical emergency?
A little background on my question:
My son was having trouble breathing after having a cold for a couple of days and we needed to stop and take the time to see if our insurance would be accepted at the closest emergency room so we didn’t end up with a huge bill (like 2000$-5000$). This was a pretty involved ~10 minute process of logging into our insurance carrier, and unsuccessfully finding the answer there. Then calling the hospital and having them tell us to look it up by scrolling through some links using the local search tool on their website. This gave me some serious pause, what if it was a real emergency, like the kind where you have no time to call and see if the closest hospital takes your insurance.
I’m not sure. I get the impression that the American culture contains the promise that you will succeed if you try, so perhaps people think that if they can’t afford private healthcare insurance or pay their medical bills then it’s their own fault. Coming from the UK I would be completely outraged if I had to pay and I think most other people here would be too. I don’t think you can have both private healthcare and a stable state in an unequal economy because if enough of your minions & customers and get sick or die you lose the big leather armchair.
I don’t know anyone who thinks it’s their own fault they can’t afford healthcare. I know plenty of people who would probably say it is ones own fault when one can’t afford healthcare. Which is a meaningless distinction in every way except the one that could change it…