I don't typically repost things in my LJ - certainly not publicly - but this is important.
As you must know if you've got this blog on your flist, I lived in Japan for three years. During those three years, I was covered by Japan's excellent health care system, which takes care of both general health and dental.
I went to the doctor several times, over those three years. I went when the joints of my toes were swollen up and stiff, so that I couldn't walk comfortably, and was eventually diagnosed with Raynaud's. I went when I was bitten by a tick on a hiking trip and my arm swelled up with fluid from shoulder to elbow. I made regular visits to the dentist. In all those years, I only once paid more than thirty dollars a visit for my copay, treatments, and prescribed medications. If I remember correctly, the bill that time was less than forty.
The procedure was essentially the same as it is in the States - I went to the front desk, showed my ID and insurance card, and sat down to wait in the lobby. The waits were normal in length. The staff were helpful and diligent, and bent over backwards to make sure they were correctly treating me as a non-native speaker of their language. Not once did I find myself hesitating to seek medical help because of the price tag involved, should something be seriously wrong.
Since coming back to the States, I have been lucky. My mother, a GP, found me an inexpensive student health plan. It covers serious injury, so that if I wake up in a hospital bed after a misjudged road crossing, my first thought will not be for my bank account, which is already being rapidly eaten up by tuition and the high rent in Monterey. However, it does not cover the little everyday things, and in my first six months back in my home country, I have already spent more on my acne medication than I did on all my medical care put together over my three years in Japan. I cannot imagine how much worse this would be if I was jobless, if I was penniless, if I was a mother living in terror of being unable to pay my own child's medical bills, of being unable to care for her if something happened to me.
Some people might tell me that it's easy for me to say all this because I was not expected to pay Japanese taxes as a JET. Yes, it was essentially a free ride - a complimentary test drive, if you will, of the benefits of such a system. FYI, having taken that test drive, I would gladly have paid those taxes, if the Japanese government required them of me, in return for the absolute peace of mind that I experienced while I lived over there.
A Japanese classmate asked me the other day, "Why don't you have universal insurance here?" She told me that it's incomprehensible to her, even alarming. She was hoping for a logical explanation. I didn't know what to tell her. Do you?
The logical explanation for why we don't have universal insurance: There are a LOT of people who have a lot of money invested in the current system, and they are afraid of losing their profits, or their jobs, if the system changes. As it stands now, there are people whose job it is to deal with the insurance companies (because it's complicated enough that that's how much administrative overhead is required). There are people whose job it is to deny insurance coverage to people where possible. And people are greedy, and people are easily scared.
Not that it's a good reason, mind you.
I'm lucky. I'm "insurable". Right now I have health insurance through work, but when I was self-employed, they paid me enough (and I've had few enough health problems ever) that I could afford individual insurance. But I've had way too many friends and acquaintances for whom that is not true - who either couldn't afford health insurance, or couldn't get it prior to the recent reforms. I guess the folks trying to repeal those reforms don't have anyone they care about who's in that same boat.
That's pretty much it. Your summary of the system is kind of shockingly spot on :P The first time I found out about "payment denial seminars" I almost had a coronary (where they all get together and find out how to bar medical billing from being paid, thus passing that burden onto the patient).
I like being the class of citizen who is permanently "uninsurable." It makes me feel secure in my country knowing that as long as I live here under our system, my entire career path will be shaped around: "can this job provide me with insurance? Will they at least pay some of the premiums so I can afford to use it?"
As you must know if you've got this blog on your flist, I lived in Japan for three years. During those three years, I was covered by Japan's excellent health care system, which takes care of both general health and dental.
I went to the doctor several times, over those three years. I went when the joints of my toes were swollen up and stiff, so that I couldn't walk comfortably, and was eventually diagnosed with Raynaud's. I went when I was bitten by a tick on a hiking trip and my arm swelled up with fluid from shoulder to elbow. I made regular visits to the dentist. In all those years, I only once paid more than thirty dollars a visit for my copay, treatments, and prescribed medications. If I remember correctly, the bill that time was less than forty.
The procedure was essentially the same as it is in the States - I went to the front desk, showed my ID and insurance card, and sat down to wait in the lobby. The waits were normal in length. The staff were helpful and diligent, and bent over backwards to make sure they were correctly treating me as a non-native speaker of their language. Not once did I find myself hesitating to seek medical help because of the price tag involved, should something be seriously wrong.
Since coming back to the States, I have been lucky. My mother, a GP, found me an inexpensive student health plan. It covers serious injury, so that if I wake up in a hospital bed after a misjudged road crossing, my first thought will not be for my bank account, which is already being rapidly eaten up by tuition and the high rent in Monterey. However, it does not cover the little everyday things, and in my first six months back in my home country, I have already spent more on my acne medication than I did on all my medical care put together over my three years in Japan. I cannot imagine how much worse this would be if I was jobless, if I was penniless, if I was a mother living in terror of being unable to pay my own child's medical bills, of being unable to care for her if something happened to me.
Some people might tell me that it's easy for me to say all this because I was not expected to pay Japanese taxes as a JET. Yes, it was essentially a free ride - a complimentary test drive, if you will, of the benefits of such a system. FYI, having taken that test drive, I would gladly have paid those taxes, if the Japanese government required them of me, in return for the absolute peace of mind that I experienced while I lived over there.
A Japanese classmate asked me the other day, "Why don't you have universal insurance here?" She told me that it's incomprehensible to her, even alarming. She was hoping for a logical explanation. I didn't know what to tell her. Do you?
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Not that it's a good reason, mind you.
I'm lucky. I'm "insurable". Right now I have health insurance through work, but when I was self-employed, they paid me enough (and I've had few enough health problems ever) that I could afford individual insurance. But I've had way too many friends and acquaintances for whom that is not true - who either couldn't afford health insurance, or couldn't get it prior to the recent reforms. I guess the folks trying to repeal those reforms don't have anyone they care about who's in that same boat.
Reply
I like being the class of citizen who is permanently "uninsurable." It makes me feel secure in my country knowing that as long as I live here under our system, my entire career path will be shaped around: "can this job provide me with insurance? Will they at least pay some of the premiums so I can afford to use it?"
Reply
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