Healthcare, schmealthcare

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.

It's an ego thing

I am fairly new to the blogging world, but I really like it. It's a way to share your thoughts with those who will listen. Seriously though, I really think blogging is egotistical: I'm not going to lie - I check my stats every now and then to see how many times people have read me, myself and I, and what I have to say - and then I tell people the numbers because honestly, I'm excited that someone noticed me!

My mum once told me, as a joke I think, that one of the main reasons I like to cook at home is because I want to please people - I always make her, my brother, my boyfriend, whoever, try something while it is in progress, but only if it tastes good - it's just a different approach to self affirmation. Not going to lie, was slightly offended by this (and this is another example of egotism, as I bet she doesn't even remember making the offhand comment, while I've dwelled upon it!) but really, she was right. If I cook something tasty, I want everyone to know, and be as impressed with me as I am with myself. Now, realistically, I like to cook foremost because, let's face it, I like to eat. (see http://ablintheusa.blogspot.com/2012/02/hate-that-i-love-you.html) But yes, I also like to show people that I can be good at something!

To me, blogging is the same. I didn't start a blog for me - essentially, this is a kind of egotistical diary, if you will, but I'm not the only one. Everyone who blogs, writes so that people will read. It's the easiest way to share information, tell your friends your dreams and desires and worst fears, without boring them to death with repetitive emails of 'I did this and I did that' - a blog gives the atmosphere of intrigue, of interest, that the same message in your facebook inbox would meet a reaction similar to, 'oh god, here she goes again'.

Anyone who blogs, is writing in the hopes that people will like what they hear (or read?) and continue to listen. I unashamedly admit this! It is a way to share my thoughts about my life here in Texas, without becoming an endless bore with my FB status updates or 'tweets' (I really hate that term but don't know what else to say as it's the correct one to use). It's a way to vent, it's a way to be creative, and essentially, it's a way to help understand if what you have to say is really worth hearing.

Having said that, I've been doing a lot of blog reading recently, and some people are really really really worth reading (I wont say more than me, but maybe as well as!):

A friend of mine is travelling in India, so when she writes, I like to see what she's been up to http://thirtyonedistant.wordpress.com/

Some people use blogging as a way to assist them into a career they want to pursue (call this free promotion Smit, you can repay me one day by getting me a free pair of Jimmy Choos from your connections at Vogue :P ): http://runninginglassshoes.tumblr.com/

Some want to pour their heart out, because writing can help them gain control of the pain they have been feeling: http://nowisgoodblog.wordpress.com/

And if you want to laugh, read the older posts especially here, as this girl is hilarious, and has awesome illustrations: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/

Ultimately though, we want you to read: we're writing with an audience in mind - we don't even have to know them. Google analytics tells me that I have followers in India and Australia, for example (guess what my ego has to say about that!) Blogging is all about who it reaches; it's the same as when a facebook status you're really proud of, gets 15 'likes'. Nothing like a shameless ego boost on a Monday night :P

Top Golf

Last Friday was the company’s two year anniversary, and to celebrate, the team was taken to play Top Golf for the afternoon. I had no idea what to expect, and was not thrilled about an afternoon of golf (I’ve never been known for my skills in hand-to-eye coordination). I had been told there would be food and beer so I thought there was going to be at least one part of the event that I’d enjoy.

 It was so fun! This is what Top Golf is:

It’s like a field of dartboards, and you have to get your golf ball in the holes. You’re put in teams and you can decide whether to compete amongst yourselves, or against another team. I’ve never been good at anything, so never felt the urge to be competitive - there’s no point unless you actually stand a good chance at winning, or you’re just constantly a disappointment to yourself. Well, I got competitive at this, because I was actually good! I was on a team with Candiance and Patrick, who is my boss, and I beat both of them twice!

I once read somewhere that girls have better coordination after one or two drinks, which would explain why I was on top form for the first two games. This is generally why I only play pool at the pub after a drink or two, because I am terrible otherwise. I mean truly awful. When Josh and I play pool on occasion, he gives me two shots to his every one, and even then it’s a struggle to win. Hugh and I once played and neither of us potted a ball in over 30 mins, I’m not joking. So yes, unfortunately my winning streak began to be slightly impaired by Corona, and my next two games were not so good. I swung so badly at one point that I nearly upset a bucket of golf balls, which were about three feet away from the actual ball I was aiming for. One or two beers will improve you to no end, beers number 3 and 4 undo all skill that you thought you had, and then you suck at sports once more.

Ah well, it was fun while it lasted.

Ignorance is bliss

There is a fine line between amusement and bemusement, but I have come to find that loads of Americans have led me to cross it without much difficulty. I am referring to the many, many times that people here have asked me about the world outside their Yankee periphery, and have made such astounding comments that I have to check if they are being serious or not. Unfortunately, nine times out of ten, the comment or question is genuine, rather than satirical.

Side note: In case anyone reading this is American, to call someone a ‘Yankee’ has nothing to do with the North – a Yank to anyone outside of the US means simply ‘an American’ – kind of in the same way that Mexicans and other Central Americans call anyone who is white a gringo whether they are from the US or not. When I was in Guatemala, all the locals would call me gringa as though it was my name, and I would point out that I was in fact Ingles – this made no difference to them, I was still a little white gringa, and you Americans are all Yanks as far as we are concerned! I realize this is a little ironic as the point of this post is about people being ignorant of other cultures but it’s my blog, so artistic license bends in my favour. Ha.

Anyway, I am asked on a fairly regular basis, questions about the UK, Britain, Great Britain, and England (which no-one seems to be able to quite identify or understand the differences between) and about how life differs over there in comparison to America. Here are some examples of questions I have genuinely been asked, or that have been asked of one of my friends, while in America.

·         What language do you speak in England?

·         Do y’all speak French over there?

·         Do you speak British or English?

·         Are you from British? (Really?!)

·         How long does it take to cross the water from Britain into Scotland?

·         Is Wales a city?

·         You’re from London? Oh, do you know my wife’s/nephew’s/uncle’s family in Manchester – the Joneses?

·         You’re from London? My roommate’s from London, an area called Yorkshire. (I told this man the difference between London and Yorkshire to which he replied, ‘well I meant England when I said London, it’s kind of the same thing right?’)

·         Do y’all have ice over there? (Frozen water? – yep, mastered that one. Clearly hadn’t been to visit us in the winter!)

·         (Asked of my German friend) Do you have TV in Germany? Is it in colour?

·         What clothes do you wear in England? (They thought we dressed like the characters from a Jane Austen film)

·         Are you Russian?! (Have genuinely been asked this on three separate occasions)

·         You don’t speak very good English do you? (That was to Josh)

·         Do you know the Queen?

·         Which state is London in?

·         You’re British? So that’s Canadian right?

·         You’re from the UK? The University of Kentucky? (I wish I was joking)
·         What do you do for light? (Asked of Ian - apparently electricity hasn't made it to Europe yet)

I could go on but I won’t because 1) I sound like a hater and 2) I can’t think of any more examples for now. I have been told on a few occasions how nice my teeth are for a British person (apparently we all have grey, rotten teeth according to American stereotype) to which I always sweetly reply, ‘thank you , I had braces and they were free thanks to the NHS’ which always starts another heated debate. Perhaps I could be accused of stirring slightly but hey, it’s fun!

There is some defence of why Americans do not know as much about the world outside these borders – the majority have never travelled outside them. That is not a dig either, I would say that a majority of Brits have been to more than just countries within the UK, but a considerable percentage would only have been as far as Europe, which is about the same size as the US. There is a huge range of climates and activities here – from snow-capped mountains for skiing, to dry dusty deserts for incredible natural landscapes, to tropical beaches to get your tan on – that it is so much easier and cheaper to take your holiday in the same country that you live in. Honestly, if England had beaches that were pretty much guaranteed gorgeous weather at any given point during the year, I would have happily lounged there all summer instead of wandering further afield in search of the UK’s very own missing link – by which I mean the sun.

I am now going to apologise to my American friends because I know that this may rile up a few people. I know I’m only fuelling the stereotypes of Americans that most of the world believes to be true, and if I’m honest, the majority of Americans that I know are very intelligent, well-travelled, knowledgeable about the outside world, and are not the ones who asked me these questions. But if ignorance is bliss, then it’s more than just Disneyworld that could count as ‘the happiest place on Earth’ :)

P.S. Sorry America, I love you really. I’ll lend you my encyclopedia Britannica.

“Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore”

We all recognize this line from The Wizard of Oz, after Dorothy gets blown away by the tornado into the wonderful world of Oz. Well after a similarly disastrous storm here in Dallas on Tuesday, I know I'm sure as hell not in England anymore.

Dallas, it seems, is slap-bang in the middle of tornado country, and right now, it’s twister season! Until this point, I’ve had many, many, Dallasites tell me just how crazy the weather gets here but when they spoke of hail stones the size of golf balls, and tornadoes blowing through the city, I thought these were perhaps occurrences that had happened in Dallas’ history, but not actually a regular annual thing. You know, like when the weather man tells us we're going to have an Indian summer in England – we laugh because we know it’s not true! Well that was my attitude towards storms and hail and tornadoes; I’m sure they could happen but it doesn’t mean they will.

Well Dallas, I’m very sorry for doubting you.

This should be an ad for safety glass - look at the size of those hail stone holes, and his windscreen didn't even shatter!

Yes, that is a lorry in the air there

I think one of these, aimed correctly, could kill you

It was strange as between 1 and 2pm, I'd been sitting outside eating lunch on a patio at a restaurant, and it was a little rainy, but we were oblivious! I heard a few sirens (imagine air raid/blitz type noises) but I'd heard them before, and dismissed it. Then we got back to the office and I see I've got texts from people in Albuquerque saying they'd seen the news and was I OK; everyone at work was standing at the windows looking out and talking about the tornadoes that had already hit certain areas, and I'd just been eating lunch on a patio! That's how sudden these things happen.It was madness. By 2.30pm, the sky was so dark it looked like night. My office is on the 7th floor, and as Dallas is so flat, you can normally see for miles, but the clouds had closed in so much we could barely see further than a block.

As the storm came in

Moments later, and the buildings have disappeared under the fog

The roads were flooded, it looked pretty apocalyptic out there, and for a while we thought we might be stuck at the office after hours (noooooo!) And then it was gone. Skies cleared up, no more rain, no more hail; the tornadoes blew away to bother other people (sorry about that guys) and life went on.

There are some really sad pictures of people's houses that have been destroyed. What's crazy is the aerial footage of the neighbourhoods that were hit shows some houses which have been destroyed and levelled to the ground, and the house next door is fully intact; perhaps the lawn ornaments have blown over, but they look pretty much untouched.

Today, apart from the pictures and tweets that are all over the internet, you would not know there had been a crazy storm yesterday. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the birds are singing in the few remaining trees... The area in the picture above, the dark one where the storm clouds were gathering, that's where I live. Today it looks like this:

It's like nothing happened

Trayvon Martin - my blood is boiling

In case you’ve been living under a rock the past few weeks, Trayvon Martin was a seventeen year old teenager shot to death in a Florida neighborhood by a twenty eight year old man, George Zimmerman. Zimmerman has walked away scot-free from the crime because Florida has a ‘stand your ground’ law which claims that, if you feel threatened, you can harm or kill that threat in the name of self-defense.

Here is a summary of what happened the night Trayvon was shot:

“Consider what the evidence tells us about what happened that night. Martin was walking through a neighborhood when Zimmerman spotted him. Zimmerman calls 911 and reports suspicious activity, which is really all a neighborhood watch captain is supposed to do anyway, and is told that officers are on the way and that he shouldn’t pursue the person he saw. Zimmerman pursues him anyway, and the two end up in some kind of altercation. We don’t know what set it off, because there are no other witnesses, but at some point during this altercation Zimmermann shot Martin. Can we really say that Zimmerman ever had a reasonable fear that his life or safety was in danger, or that he didn’t bring the physical confrontation on himself by ignoring police advice and pursuing someone whose identity and intentions he was not even aware of? Surely, Zimmerman was not in any physical danger when he first saw Martin and called the police, that only happened afterwards when he chose on his own to pursue this person. And, surely, one could surmise that Martin may have thought that he was in some kind of danger from this unknown person that was following him. Rather than self-defense, this easily could be seen as a confrontation that Zimmerman invited and even initiated, which is what makes the police’s initial decision to decline to pursue charges in this case so disturbing.”

Doug Mataconis, ‘Murder or Self-Defense?’, http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/murder-or-self-defense-florida-case-raises-questions/

I cannot believe the audacity of the Florida police. A boy gets shot dead, and the shooter gets no charges held against him because ‘they have no evidence to contradict his story that it was an act of self-defense’. WTF?!  I mean, really?!

Police Officer: “You’re under arrest for murder.”

Suspect: “Err… it was self-defense.”

Police Officer: “Oh right, sorry Sir. You’re free to go. Have a great day; I’ll just clean up this corpse.”

It’s outrageous that Zimmerman, after being explicitly told by police to leave them to assess the situation, pursues the unarmed teenager and is released without charges after shooting him dead. When Zimmerman initially rang the police, he told them, “Hey, we’ve had some break-ins in my neighborhood and there’s a real suspicious guy… he looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something.”

He looks like he’s up to no good OR on drugs OR something. Talk about shooting in the dark to find a cause for suspicion (if you’ll pardon the pun). Since when does walking along the street make you appear suspicious?! OK granted, this is America where everyone drives everywhere, but still! Zimmerman made a completely baseless stereotype of a young boy in a hoodie walking along in a neighborhood where he wasn’t immediately recognized by the local ‘nosy neighbor’. Instead of letting the police deal with it, as he was instructed, he followed the boy who shortly after, ended up dead.

Had Zimmerman left it to the authorities, Trayvon would probably have been asked where he was headed (his father’s fiancée’s house) and maybe searched for the drugs or paraphernalia that were apparently causing him to appear ‘up to no good’. They would have found nothing on him but a packet of Skittles and a can of ice tea, and let him on his way.

If Zimmerman did indeed feel threatened by Trayvon, I imagine this was something to do with the fact that the young boy felt afraid and asked what Zimmerman was doing, considering he was being pursued by a strange man with a gun. I think the case here is more that Trayvon felt like the victim, and it was he, not Zimmerman, that was defensive. If there was a confrontation, surely Zimmerman initiated it when he chose to follow a seventeen year old down a dark street with a gun. He had a gun! I cannot stress this enough, the local vigilante who one day dreamed of joining the police force, followed a ‘suspicious’ teenager after being told to stay where he was, armed with a gun, and has not been charged with shooting the unarmed boy.

What the fuck.

All of this comes across as utterly unbelievable, and that’s before the question of a racially motivated shooting comes into play. Yeah, forgot to mention, Trayvon was African-American. George Zimmerman is not.

Have a think about Trayvon’s family, who right now are dealing with the high possibility that the man who shot their son dead is going to walk away without any consequences to his actions. Whether Zimmerman acted due to racial motivations or not, how can a man admit to killing a boy and still be considered innocent?

Read here for more information:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-trayvon-marti

Here is a link to an online petition calling to bring Zimmerman to justice:
http://www.change.org/petitions/prosecute-the-killer-of-our-son-17-year-old-trayvon-martin 

The Quest for the Holy Grail (a.k.a. ‘Where to Find a Decent Kebab’)

On Sunday, Ian and I embarked upon a search for a kebab. Not just any old, meat-on-a-skewer, cooked-on-a-grill kebab, but a full blown doner-in-a-pita-bread. It may come as a shock to you that the US (at least Texas and New Mexico) is massively lacking in late night kebab shops, which are so beautifully common in England. No cheesy chips, definitely no chips in gravy, and NO DONER KEBABS. (I know we all wake up after a night out and instantly regret that we even looked at a doner, let alone consumed one without any help and enjoyed it, but they are a late-night necessity and one that Dallas is lacking.)

America seems like the type of place where the calorie-filled, greasy doner meat would feel right at home; this is after all the home of the Big Mac, KFC, and also the location where, two years ago, I tried deep-fried butter (it was surprisingly good – don’t judge me). A large doner contains almost your entire daily recommended allowance of calories in just one meal, but sometimes, it’s the only thing that will do the trick.

Ian has lived in the US for nearly ten years now, and has been very sad about the lack of kebabs. Every time he came to visit us in St Albans, we’d always take him for a kebab - sometimes because we were nice and we knew he liked them, other times perhaps we were trying to use them as persuasive tools to make him move back to the UK. But anyway, when I moved to Dallas, it became our quest to find somewhere that provided at least a decent substitute. And find one, we did.

However, the place was about 14 miles from home, so we had a bit of a drive ahead of us. (Yes, we drove 14 miles for a kebab. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again – don’t judge me). On our way, we went to the British Emporium, a shop in North-West Dallas which sells British things like Twining’s tea, Cadbury’s chocolate, and real gravy (ahh, Bisto). Obviously I was like a kid in a candy shop; they had dairy milk! And wine gums! And things I didn’t even realise I missed, like Monster Munch and Branston pickle! I was very excitable, and skipped around the shop for a while, picking up jars and packets, exclaiming things like, ‘ooh, Marmite’, or ‘look! Chocolate digestives!’ and ‘oh my god, Shreddies!!’  I think I provided a lot of entertainment to the other customers.

Who knew a packet of polos would bring me such joy?

We left with a car full of goodies, from baked beans to Heinz cream of tomato soup, and headed off for kebabs. I’m not sure quite what I was expecting but the place was actually a Greek restaurant – I suppose I’d been imagining a dirty chip shop type place. But there it was on the menu, ‘gyros – meat sliced off our vertical broiler.’ (Broil means grill in America. Incidentally, grill often means fry. Grilled cheese is made in a frying pan, grilled burgers are made in a frying pan. America likes calories.) The kebab came as more of an actual meal, on a plate, with sides. Both of us were a bit bemused about using cutlery to eat it. Ian gave up in the end, said it didn’t feel right using a knife and fork on food that was invented to be eaten with fingers. But it was tasty! (The picture may not do it justice, but it was, I promise.) We even gave baby Jack some pita bread so he didn’t feel left out. We left feeling satisfied with our discovery, but the quest will continue, as 14 miles really is too far to travel for a kebab, even if it’s tasty. We’re going to try again soon at another place that’s a bit closer to home, but that didn’t open on Sunday.

Today, to continue my back-to-Britain experiences of the weekend, I started my day with a cup of tea and a hot cross bun :)

Oh, and on an irrelevant but amusing note, look at the name of this bridge! (In America, esp the south, Gaylord is an old family name, and has loads of things named in the family’s honour. But to me, an immature 22 year old, it’s just funny!)