I watched the Senate debate last night concerning the health care bill now making its slower-than-molasses way thru the US Congress. I'm not going to go into the technicalities or the awful politicizing of each American's health care that BOTH Republicans and Democrats have done since September on this bill. There's no point in that, save to say that I have relatives, a daughter stuck with no health care at all due to her workplace not having any and my beloved wife Kelly who also has none as she is not yet 65 and thus not covered by Medicare. The rest of my immediate family does (I HOPE!) have coverage of one kind or another. My own is thru Medicare Advantage at Kaiser Permanente. My verdict so far is that it works for me and at a fraction of the cost that I had as a teacher to be enrolled at Kaiser, which had grown to over 1100 USD when we pulled the plug on it last year as unaffordable. We went to the Fingers-Crossed coverage plan for Kelly as I was then enrolled in Medicare.
A long time fan of Kaiser, I have had terrific, nay I say, life-saving, treatment by them several times in my recent past ie. two heart attacks among them. I am fortunate enough that I have first hand observation of another country's healthcare system, that of France. I have gotten prescriptions filled there, have gone to the doctor and the dentist there and have observed and spoken with French citizens about the health system's parts I haven't used (yet), such as the emergency room. I have a couple of examples of extraordinary health situations that were resolved on non-member persons (ex-pats) in the French system too. The World Health Organization thinks highly of the French system, rating it as the one of best in the world.
I hope in my heart of hearts that we in the US can have such coverage one day but I have my doubts. Too much money is involved, doctors with their own clinics, predatory insurance companies, astronomical drug costs, poor diets, alcoholism, rampant diabetes et al. It's a sick "system" that definetly needs some fixing, the current bill will help but will still need much further modification before it becomes anything worthy of praise. Still...this bill IS a start, it will be passed this week and passed by the same boring and unimaginative 60 Yeses and 40 Nos that we have come to expect from our so-called representatives in the Senate. How wonderful.
For example...my doctor's best friend vactioned in France last September. After hoisting lugage about for a few days he noticed a bump on his abdomen above his belly button. As a few days went by it grew larger and painful as well. He went to a doctor in Paris and was examined. "A rupture" was the diagnosis and he was sent forthwith to a local hospital. Given a name tag, there was no discussion of insurance, he was asked if he had any but that was all. This was before noontime. He was in bed, settled with his wife at his side at 1pm. He was operated on at 3pm and back in his bed at 4pm repaired. He spent the next 5 days healing further before he was released. Upon release he resumed his vacation and returned to San Francisco. A bill arrived from the hospital, the ONLY bill by the way, for $600 Euros (about 900 USD at the time). Try THAT in the US.
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