I’ve been planning this blog for a while but have never
quite worked up to writing it, as it is a ridiculously complex topic which both
confuses and angers me greatly (in equal proportions). As a citizen of a
country where we pay slightly higher tax and receive healthcare either at a
hugely subsidized price or for free, to be living in a country where this
access to doctors/dentists/opticians etc is limited either by price or
availability, I am baffled. Why would people not want an American equivalent to the NHS?!
When I lived in Albuquerque two years ago, the subject of
free healthcare was a hot topic as this was around the time that Obama was
trying to level the playing field in terms of affordability and accessibility.
Basically, he had a vision that people who lived below the poverty line in
America should still be able to get prescriptions for their children; get a
filling from their dentist; take a trip to A&E if they fell down and broke
their leg; and not have to stress about how much it was going to cost them
after their visit, especially if they didn’t have insurance. I know, what a
cold-hearted bastard.
Anyway, I spoke to a lot of Americans about it, because
believe it or not, propaganda in the States paints the NHS as evil and wrong. It
will raise taxes, and no-one wants that. It’s going to help drug-addicts, and
homeless people, and immigrants, and no-one wants that. People are going to
abuse the system and cost the country a fortune… you get my point here. What
people don’t seem to understand is they still spend that money, but it goes to
their insurance companies! Insurance companies make a FORTUNE off healthcare,
yet you can’t afford not to have it.
I pay about $130 a month for health insurance, so roughly £85.
And that still doesn’t entitle me to see a doctor without paying a further $25
per visit. There’s no prescription cost cap here, so if you have to take
antibiotics it could cost you anything from $10 to $60, depending on your
insurance. Think of it as an excess; you pay the first amount, and the
insurance company covers the rest. Compare that to the £7.20 for prescriptions in England. Well,
needless to say, it makes me glad I have not been ill enough to need a
prescription yet! The company I work for pays for 65% of my health
insurance, so that $130 a month is only 35% of what it could be costing me! (If
my calculations are correct, which chances are, they’re not, it costs $371 a
month to insure me. That’s $4457 a year. If I was in the UK on the equivalent
salary, I’d be paying about the same in taxes. However, our tax includes
healthcare plus everything else; roads, street lights, and policemen to name
but a few. I pay tax on top of that $4457 here.)
My point is, it’s damn expensive to pay for health
insurance, but if they can, people do it because they have to. Recently, a
friend of mine took her son to A&E because he had a ridiculous temperature,
and it cost her $150 just to be seen by a doctor in the emergency room. She
didn’t have to pay upfront, it’s not like they wouldn’t admit her unless she
handed the cash over right there, but that was what she was billed after her
son was seen by the doctor. And she has insurance! So imagine what people without
insurance would have to pay.
Like I said above, no-one has to pay upfront, so if you
really are in trouble medically, you will always be seen by a doctor, they
won’t turn you away if you tell them you have no insurance (in A&E that
is). But most surgeries make you register with them before you make an
appointment, to ensure you have insurance, to ensure they are going to get paid
for their work. I’m not blaming them, business is business; they need to make a
living as much as the next person. What angers me is that it limits people’s
access to a basic human right if you don’t earn as much as someone else. Why
should a well-paid job mean you are more entitled to see a doctor about an
illness than someone who earns minimum wage? There are free clinics, where
doctors work pro bono, or are funded by either local governments or
non-profits, but you can’t book an appointment, so you walk in and wait in line
with everyone else. If you can’t afford health insurance, chances are you can’t
afford to take a day off work to sit in line at the doctor’s surgery either.
I went to the opticians the other day to get my eyes tested
and get some new glasses, as the ones I have now are about 7 years old and I thought
maybe it was time to branch out from my free NHS frames… Anyway, I got there
and signed in for my appointment by filling in seven different forms, I’m not
joking, all of which had me write my social security number and insurance
details on, then took a seat in the waiting room. AN HOUR LATER I went and
asked at the desk what the F was going on and that I’d been waiting for ages (I
didn’t actually swear.) She looked at her list and said I was next. She then
asked me if anyone had told me that my actual appointment was going to take up
to two hours, once I was actually seen by the optician. TWO HOURS! To look in my
eyes with a bright light and make me read small letters off a chart! I said
that no-one had informed me of that, so she asked if I wanted to reschedule to
another time. Hell no. I told her that I had been in that waiting room
for an hour already, and that I most certainly was not going to reschedule so I
could come back the week after to waste more of my time in the same seat before
someone decided to take care of me. She looked a bit taken aback at my outburst,
and repeated that I was next on her list.
This was a lie. Two more people got called before I did, and
my grand total of time wasted in a waiting room was 90 minutes. I was seen by
one woman, who did all the letter tests, and looked at my brain through my
retina, or whatever it is that opticians do. She then put these eye drops that
dilate your pupils in my eyes, in order for the next doctor to come see my
brain through my retina too. I looked like I was on crack! Here is a scary
picture of my crack-eyes. I was told I looked like I was about to kill someone.
 |
| Serial killer |
So that was my wonderful experience of using the healthcare
system in America. I sure am glad I pay my hard earned dollars for this fine delivery
of service. Pssh, give me the NHS any day.
