I’m sitting here in New Zealand feeling frustrated after reading Kinsey Gidick’s article True Tales about Healthcare Abroad. Nothing against Gidick, the article makes for an interesting read.
While the article does a great job of proving a point regarding the exorbitant cost of healthcare in the USA and the Medical Tourism alternatives available, Gidick, along with the vast majority of US media, polarizes the concept of socialized healthcare.
I’m referring to the section entitled “United Kingdom or Magic Kingdom”:
Dr. Evans disagrees. “I had a good friend of mine who lived on the west coast of England who was in his 80s and suffered from terrible chronic neuropathic pain,” he says. “After months of waiting, he was at last able to see a neurosurgeon who confirmed that he needed surgery to correct his problem. They put him down on the books for surgery 11 months out. Granted the surgery and all his care was free, but had he been in this country I could have picked up the phone and had him in a surgical suite in a week.”
Why is it that, regardless of whether they are ‘for’ or ‘against’ socialized healthcare, the US media insist on packaging a nations healthcare up in a nice tidy box that either has ‘socialized’ or ‘not socialized’ (or more correctly ‘American system’ or ‘Canadian system’) written on the front. The reality is that it is not this black and white.
Having lived and worked in the UK for a period of time, I’m in a fairly safe position to say that, much like New Zealand’s system, the chap Dr. Evans refers to had options, something that neither the US or the Canadian system would provide.
A quick Google of “private neurosurgeons UK” gives an abundance of competent surgeons. So had this patient been willing to pay he could have avoided the long wait he experienced.
or
Again through the powers of google it is pretty easy to confirm that there are elective insurance options available that would have covered this man for private surgery, again avoiding the wait lists.
or
He could have gone with the option he did…. Suffer the wait and receive free treatment.
Safe to say that even if Dr. Evan’s friend had chosen to pay, it would have been significantly cheaper than paying for the same care in the USA.
So why, when there are systems around that can offer so much choice, do the US media focus on perhaps the two least flexible systems around?
