Socialized Medicine: My Experience
Before I begin I would like to state that I am not at all well informed. I have been spending far too much time laying out by the pool in my bikini and drinking slurpees this summer and far too little time reading news about Obama's plan for socialized medicine in the USA. If my opinion seems skewed remember it is coming from Krista, a girl who grew up under the HMO/PPO plan and who now lives in post-communist Czech Republic which has a long history of socialized medicine. Being who I am, ie. clumsy, accident prone, weak, I have already had my fair share of experience with doctors, dentists, gynecologists, ambulances, and hospitals. We also have experienced health care for children, owing to the fact that we have a couple of those as well. OK, let's get to it..
HMO/PPO vs. Socialized Medicine
Before I begin I would like to state that I am not at all well informed. I have been spending far too much time laying out by the pool in my bikini and drinking slurpees this summer and far too little time reading news about Obama's plan for socialized medicine in the USA. If my opinion seems skewed remember it is coming from Krista, a girl who grew up under the HMO/PPO plan and who now lives in post-communist Czech Republic which has a long history of socialized medicine. Being who I am, ie. clumsy, accident prone, weak, I have already had my fair share of experience with doctors, dentists, gynecologists, ambulances, and hospitals. We also have experienced health care for children, owing to the fact that we have a couple of those as well. OK, let's get to it..
HMO/PPO vs. Socialized Medicine
MONEY
HMO: Costs an arm and a leg (Last experience...co-pay was $30 and our insurance only covered 80% of normal stuff and more like 50% of the emergency expensive stuff. I needed surgery and it was going to cost us thousands. Plus we paid $800 a month for our insurance after the employer paid their part)
HMO: Costs an arm and a leg (Last experience...co-pay was $30 and our insurance only covered 80% of normal stuff and more like 50% of the emergency expensive stuff. I needed surgery and it was going to cost us thousands. Plus we paid $800 a month for our insurance after the employer paid their part)
Soc. Med.: FREE!!! (Dan's note: Not free at all ... see below)
DOCTORS
HMO: You can't choose your doctor if you are on an HMO. This sucks dog hair. I have a heart problem and I couldn't go to the best doctor who gave me such good care because he wasn't a preferred doctor on their list. So I had to go to a quack. Suck suck suck .
Soc. Med.: If you are not happy with your current doctor you can switch, no problem. We have switched dentists and cardiologists with no issues.
TIME WITH PATIENT
HMO: Waiting in the doctor's office can sometimes take hours and when you get in the room
you wait again, only to have the doctor spend like 10 minutes with you.
HMO: Waiting in the doctor's office can sometimes take hours and when you get in the room
you wait again, only to have the doctor spend like 10 minutes with you.
Soc. Med.:I have really never waited more than a couple of minutes for my doctors here. Even without an appointment. Many times I have gone right in. Then you sit in the Doctor's office with the doctor and he or she talks with you. I never feel that there is a hurry.
QUALITY OF CARE
HMO: OK, this is where a difference lies...and I am not sure if this is strictly America, but we have high-quality medical care with modern equipment. We rule in the dental arena. If I were to have a large medical problem, I would feel better dealing with it in America.
Soc.Med: My gynecologist uses a typewriter, and the dentist think pain-killers are for wimps. Nuff said.
Honestly, we have been really thankful for the good quality of medical care that we have received here. Surprisingly good. Save for a few anamolies (medieval dentist, ODing on heart medication due to a bad prescription and, finally, a prostate exam in the doctor's kitchen) things have been OK...and with all of the benefits, I am leaning to the left on this one.
Dan's two cents: I would like to chime in one one thing here that Krista didn't mention. While it is nice to receive just about any treatment with virtually no co-pay (sometime there is $1.50 co-pay), there is the little issue of the 20% "social" taxes we pay, in addition to the income tax. This tax pays for health insurance and social security. Compared to what we paid in the states for health insurance, it is much cheaper, but much of that is because our wages here are much lower.
Please comment and share your opinions.
4 comments:
its cool because you guy are able to view from both sides of the perspective. Tony got to experience a "socialized-like system" in Japan when he was there and he liked it as well. Unfortunately the biggest thing for argument against socialized medicine is higher taxes. America's starting to become the most taxed nation (especially for income tax and corporate tax) in the world (outside of Britain) and yet we have nothing to show for it. Smaller countries like Czech are able to handle their load of medical traffic b/c they're significantly smaller and have a communist history to look back at and compare to. America doesn't and it has an influx of more than 20 million unaccounted for residents (illegal aliens) who draw on public services. It's unfortunate that people now are willing to to have the gov that: allowed the housing crash to happen, run failing social security system, maintain inefficient DMV dept, Medicaid, VA and Medicare, etc to now control, determine and rationalize medicine for ALL citizens. If we're smart we'd revamp medicare and medicade to become appropriate competitors to the private industry to drive prices down rather than up, but since private insurance companies offers so much more in covering services people prefer them, even with the co-pay. =( "A government that is big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have." Thomas Jefferson -sorry I said too much. =)
Hi,
it is very interesting for me, thanks for your view, opinion. Lenka
I have been saying since the early 90s how great the European health care system is. I don't like Canada's social health care and that's what most Americans compare with. Obama's system may not be the best, but that's because we have demonized socialized medicine and the powers that be have to compromise too much to have an actual working system. Oh well, we love over-paying for health care that we believe is superior to the rest of the world's health care... grrrrr!
I hadn't heard about the prostate exam in the kitchen....NICE! :)
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