I’d like to know other non-US citizen’s opinions on your health care system are when you read a story like this. I know there are worse places in the world to receive health care, and better. What runs through your heads when you have a medical emergency?
A little background on my question:
My son was having trouble breathing after having a cold for a couple of days and we needed to stop and take the time to see if our insurance would be accepted at the closest emergency room so we didn’t end up with a huge bill (like 2000$-5000$). This was a pretty involved ~10 minute process of logging into our insurance carrier, and unsuccessfully finding the answer there. Then calling the hospital and having them tell us to look it up by scrolling through some links using the local search tool on their website. This gave me some serious pause, what if it was a real emergency, like the kind where you have no time to call and see if the closest hospital takes your insurance.
When I need medical care, I go to the doctor, it is not a question about if I can afford it, I just go.
Back in 2019 I got sick like hell with mycoplasma, I was out of work for a month and a half, and even stayed two nights in hospital.
I never worried about my job, just focused on getting better.
At the end you do still have to pay here in Sweden, but in total, several doctors vists, two nights in hospital, antibiotics, food in hopsital and the medicine from the pharmacy cost me about the equivalent of 150USD.
So while not 100% free to me, I did not even once think about the cost.
To put that in perspective I have a nonemergency going on right now. I need to replace my CPAP. To do so I need a new prescription for one. In order to do that I need to go to my primary doctor to get a referral to a sleep specialist. That appointment cost me $250. The sleep specialist basically told me yup I need a CPAP just like the past 7 years. That cost me $370. So now I’ve paid $620 in order to pay $800-$1000 for a new CPAP.