Health Care: Good Reading

[drscott]

Hat tip Greg Minkow's blog: long but rewarding Atlantic article on health care reform. They killed his father, and the bill was $636,687.75.

Comments

[audrabaudra.livejournal.com]

Curtis, I know. I know it's desperately unfair to tar the whole country with one brush based on the anecdotal evidence about my husband's injury. Now that the emotion has worn off from my recounting, I will agree that American medical research drives the world, and our practitioners are fantastic here, too. I agree that a person might get treated poorly in Canada or the UK. I had an IUD inserted as birth control in the UK, and my US doc was appalled when I came over here, which goes to show.

Yet I think that if you go to an ER in the US and 1) you have a funny accent, and 2) you say you have "travel insurance" when the doctor (Yes, the doctor) asks if you have any coverage, then 3) the likelihood of being treated like cattle at the abattoir is significantly higher than it might be in a country where healthcare is more freely doled out.

I know it's hard to believe that the doc never told us to put ice on the injury, but he didn't. I'm extraordinarily detail-oriented in these situations, plus I still have a copy of his written orders, kept for our NZ insurance. He wrote instructions about 800mg of ibuprofen, but nothing else. When we got home and got Ross to bed, I Googled and saw that the primary treatment is ice. Couldn't believe that the doctor hadn't said a word about something so basic. Perhaps he thought the hospital would have to supply a cold pack if he did.

More, anecdotally speaking. NZ: I was in orthopaedic trauma in a bed across from a Swiss woman who'd fallen whilst penguin-watching in Antarctica and come to Christchurch as first port of call for treatment off the Russian boat (international!). She spoke French, and we chatted, but her English was quite poor. She was going home to Switzerland to recuperate, so her insurance sent a nurse to travel with her. The nurse was fluent, and she set about making the discharge arrangements. I was a witness to what happened next: a man from Christchurch Hospital came to Giselle's bed and explained to both women that Giselle would have to pay NZ$30,000 in cash before she could go.

It's only half the amount in Euros--15,000 or thereabouts--so it wasn't a huge burden. Still, the NZ hospital wasn't accepting the travel insurance's promises.

Limitations, then, on travel insurance wherever one goes...but Giselle wasn't sent back to her hotel room with advice to see a specialist "whenever," either.