Health Care

This young girl was traveling with her father in Europe and had a health problem and needed to go to a hospital. I arranged for an ambulance to take them to the hospital. The daughter received treatment, spent a few nights at the hospital and had a mildly invasive procedure done to treat a kidney stone. The father was concerned about the cost because his insurance was not accepted in Europe so he would have to pay in cash. In an American hospital this would cost thousands of dollars. It turns out the bill came to approximately 360 Euros or $400 U.S dollars. The father was ecstatic, because he had been expecting to pay more like $10,000. Perhaps when we are looking at the American health care system, we could learn from other Western industrialized nations who are not only taking care of their own people with their universal system, but they are also taking care of those who come from abroad as tourists and travelers.

I was taking care of this individual who came into the hospital in pretty bad shape. He came into an ICU and all he could focus on was “Do you have my insurance card? Please don’t forget my insurance cards because I don’t want my wife to have to deal with this bill because I don’t think I’m going to make it.” And he didn’t. That was the last day that he spent on this planet. And his last words were “Don’t saddle my wife with this big cost because you can’t find my card.” That just really resonated with me because that is a broken system. People are really sick and their bodies are under immense stress but their worry is how they will pay for the care. Universal health care is not scary and horrific. What’s horrific is what we have now.