Friday,
August 18, 2006
If you have to get Sick,
Get Sick in
The
ANNOTICO Report
You
may have some misconceptions about National Health Care.
In comparisons
between the
Worried about waiting for a doctor? Or a hospital bed?
The Europeans have 37-1/2 percent more doctors than we,
and way over twice as many hospital beds, per capita. Worried about choice? European hospitals are 65 percent government run and
35 percent privately run. Take your pick. The health-care system pays. You also
get to choose your doctor.
The difference in the quality of service is difficult for Americans to
comprehend. In
The bottom line: We pay 43 percent more for health care than the Europeans do,
and we get a whole lot less for our money.
By
George H. Lesser
August 16, 2006
I
have problems with our health insurance "provider," as I suppose some
of you reading this do as well.
I had a minor test done in my doctor
Not too long ago, another doctor sent me to a hospital to have two routine
tests performed, which required a general anesthetic in an operating room. My
wife went through the same thing a few months before, and the insurance company
paid only half because the two tests were performed simultaneously. So I
scheduled two visits, on separate days, in the full operating room with the
doctor, anesthesiologists, nurses, and who knows what else. I missed two days
of work. The insurance company paid twice as much, plus twice the
administrative costs for processing two claims. And, of course, I had to run
twice the risks of two procedures under general anesthetic. The insurance tail
wags the medical dog.
The last time I sought
medical help in Italy, I suffered from gastrointestinal
distress to such an extent I wasn
I asked the hotel for a doctor. They said it would be faster to go the hospital.
I drove to the hospital, walked in, was instructed to
take a seat in the waiting room. Knowing what was about to occur, I went out to my car, grabbed my book, went back into
the hospital and settled in for a nice, long read.
After at most five minutes, a male nurse interrupted me. I assumed it was to
wrestle with insurance forms in Italian. Instead, the fellow escorted me into a
hospital room, where we were joined immediately by a doctor. He questioned me
closely about my symptoms. He had me lie down on the bed and started poking and
asking me how it felt. He had the male nurse draw some blood, and he ran some
other tests. He took a medical history and inspected parts of my anatomy that
seemed to have nothing to do with the problem.
I was there six hours. The nurse was in the room with me for all but a few
minutes. The doctor was there almost all the time. After a while, he got the
test results, which showed I did not have food poisoning, but he wanted to
observe me a while longer. Eventually, he concluded I had contracted some kind
of intestinal bug, and he gave me a couple of days
supply of Cipro and Flagyl.
I checked in with the lady at the front desk to ask how much I owed. She asked
me if I had parked in the hospital parking lot. I said yes. She said I owed one
euro and 50 pence ($2). I asked how much for the
medical care and the medicine. She said that was free. When I got back to
Most Americans I talk to have a lot of screwy ideas about medical care. They
think Americans have "The Best Health-Care System in the World." They
think "socialized medicine" doesn
We
have many wonderful doctors, hospitals and pieces of equipment in the
George H. Lesser has reported for more than 30 years
on international political and economic developments for both
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