A friend of mine recently pleaded on Facebook that people stop calling those of us who support “Obamacare” names like “ignorant” and “free-loader,” because many of us have found ourselves drowning in the US healthcare non-system.
Resorting to Ad hominem almost always means that you’ve lost the argument, and I’ve been called names for supporting universal healthcare, too. I’ve also barely escaped drowning in the US healthcare non-system.
I hope it does not sound arrogant when I say that I think I’m in a unique position with respect to healthcare systems, not because I’m any sort of policy expert, but because I’ve sampled it in no fewer than five different countries.
In February, 2005, we were living in California, and I was pregnant with our first child. The only insurance I’d been able to purchase–thanks to my ‘pre-existing conditions’ cost over $500 a month, but had an extremely high deductible, high co-pay percentage, and covered almost nothing.
Having a kid on that insurance would have cost half our yearly income.
May I also point out that we were saving to pay for graduate school IN CASH, having paid for the previous graduate school (yes, we are nerds) IN CASH. So next time you hear that people who are in favor of the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare), please do not assume that they are irresponsible morons who don’t know how to plan for the future.
There was, however, a great California program, funded by the tobacco tax, that offered a good deal to mid-income folks:
We bought into it for 1% of our yearly salary, while they, in turn, covered all out-of-pocket healthcare costs, for me AND for the baby.
That isn’t to say that Blue Cross of California did not continue to drag their corporate feet (do corporations have feet? I’m assuming so, since they have Constitutional rights) before eventually paying the bill, causing the hospital to call me when my son was about 2 weeks old and screaming his head off round the clock to tell me I owed $10,000. They eventually pay, but not until I have to wait hours on the phone while the recording assures me that Blue Cross cares about me.
For example, our family lived in Scotland for three years, and that’s where our second child was born. I received excellent, personal, and relaxed prenatal care under the NHS. I gave birth under seriously ideal–though not fancy–conditions, conditions that are CLEARLY motivated by concern for good care, not over might you sue me? In other words, I was not pressed to take pain medication or forced to have an IV or continuous fetal monitoring, since none of those things have been demonstrated to save lives or improve health…but they’re things that come up in malpractice suits and so doctors and hospitals in the US insist on them because of ass-coverage concerns.
We departed the hospital six hours after the birth (by my choice, I could’ve stayed) and were visited daily for 10 days by midwives who weigh the baby, check us both over, and ascertain that we’re doing well, physically and emotionally.
(In a culture like ours where MANY women suffer serious postpartum emotional troubles, daily visits are not such a bad idea.)
In 2009, we were in Rome on a business trip/holiday. Graeme, who was just over a year, got sick, possibly with heatstroke. Fever was high; he was vomiting repeatedly, he was barely waking up. We went to the hospital and try to make ourselves understood. Graeme is given an IV, and recovers splendidly. No mention of a bill.
Later that summer, we sampled French healthcare.
Our older son, Aidan slipped on a wet supermarket floor and fractured his leg badly. He was taken to the hospital to have his leg set, and had several follow up visits while we were there. At no point was any bill discussed or sent.
Later that summer, we moved to Germany, which has a system that’s most like the Affordable Care Act: everyone has to have insurance (individual mandate), working folks mostly get it via their employers, and the government helps out folks who for various reasons are having trouble.
Aidan had his cast removed, but needed (and received) physical therapy.
Concurrently, Graeme cut his head badly and needed (and got) stitches.
Concurrently, I got a really nasty case of mastitis (on the weekend OF COURSE) which meant I had to go to the ER on the bus. The bus ride made me sick and I vomited the moment I stepped off, only to have a friendly German guy, accompanied by several toddlers, who were all going to see their sick mother/wife in the hospital, stop and ask if I was okay. I cried because they were so sweet and kind to my vomit-y self. I got treatment, and then a secondary infection from the antibiotics and had to go back to the doctor.
A few weeks later, my son Graeme got a really serious staph infection (MRSA) and was hospitalized for 8 days. The ER doctors laughed when I asked if our insurance would cover the hospitalization. “OF COURSE!”
A few months later, Graeme broke his leg.
I was totally impressed by the ER/ortho team that x-rayed, diagnosed, casted, and discharged Graeme in an hour flat. I’m not even exaggerating. Reminds me of the story my dad told of a fight breaking out at a beer fest in Germany. The whole thing was over and cleaned up in 10 minutes. Efficiency!
A few months after that, we were back in NY, Aidan broke his leg.
Thankfully, we were among the 1 in 3 or 4 New Yorkers that qualified for some form of government-assisted health insurance. Nonetheless, I spent HOURS (crying) on the phone trying to find a doctor who will take our insurance. Finally, we have to take him to another emergency room to wait for hours until he can be seen.
Let me tell you what REALLY gets in the way of the doctor-patient relationship.
It’s not a government bureaucrat and never will be. It’s MONEY. It’s insurance-company bureaucrats. It’s Darwinian, and it’s heinous.
Believe me when I tell you I have also left out a lot of other things. These are just the highlights.
And I think you’ll believe me when I say that if I was in the US for all those things–or in less generous states like Texas–I probably would STILL be paying the bills. Or else filed for bankruptcy.
Did you know that the number #1 cause of personal bankruptcy in the US is MEDICAL EXPENSES?
Ours is the only developed country where people hold bake sales to help pay for folks’ cancer treatments, or lose their houses because someone had the misfortune of being hit by a car. It’s only by dumb luck that these things didn’t happen to us. Remember all the money we carefully saved to pay for our graduate educations in cash?
It should be within every person’s ability to take care of their health, and that of their children, without going bankrupt…or losing their house…or losing the money they’ve worked hard for…and I think the free market has had a fair shot at making that happen, and lost.
I have to chuckle when I hear reference to “the US healthcare system.” Because there isn’t one. There just isn’t.
Oh, wait. There is one. It works great. It’s more socialized than the system in Germany. It’s called the VA. It’s socialized medicine! And it works great! My dad says that military healthcare was a major incentive for enlistment and re-enlistment in his day–especially for people who were married with kids.
As far as partisan politics go, no less a Republican than Richard Nixon tried in 1974 to make a ‘Medicare for all’ move. You know who opposed it vocally? Ted Kennedy. Because he didn’t want Nixon to make a move that would be so popularly,well, popular. Because it would have been.
I really don’t care which initial is in parentheses after a politician’s name. I just like to see policies that are good for the people who don’t have enough money to buy a dental cleaning, MUCH LESS A SENATOR. Besides, didn’t Jesus expressly say something about doing good to those who CAN’T do anything in return?
No system is perfect. But the US doesn’t have a system, period.
I now live in a country–Malawi, one of the poorest in the world–where people die every day of really preventable diseases, and part of the reason they die is that they can’t pay for treatment. Good hospitals exist–for those who can afford to pay, period.
Yes, there are the stories of the international community coming to the aid of the poor, and PEPFAR and other programs funded by US-AID are important and effective. But I’ve been in the hospitals and clinics that serve the poorest of the poor. They are sparse buildings with few supplies. They run out of the reactive agents to run HIV tests.
I’ve also been to the expensive hospitals, the hospitals that exist for people who can afford to pay. They are more than adequate. So if you have the money, you can get care. If you’re poor, you die.
Which hospitals do you think that government officials go to? Which hospitals do United States government officials go to?
Do we really want to entrust precious human lives to the invisible hand of the almighty “market”?
Does that sound Christian to you?
Meanwhile, my cousin shared this video. If you don’t know the difference between Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act (or even if you do) you should watch it: