There is a saying that essentially has it that you should judge a man by his weakest link. Although probably unfair, this often does hold true in regards to other things, particularly when you begin to discuss groups, or things that are far larger than one person.
So it is that if we use this to judge the current American healthcare system, we find one significant failing in the American model that we simply do not see anywhere else in the industrialized world. Namely, ridiculous, outstanding bills that would take a lifetime for the average family or individual to pay.
It has always astonished me that some Americans boldly proclaim the American healthcare system to be the best in the world. While it is probably generally true that the best medical attention and technology is available in the United States, it is available only if you have the big money necessary to pay for it, or to have an insurance that is solid enough to do so. Trust me, reliable healthcare is not an automatic for everyday, working Americans. As with everything else, it is a case of the rich and most privileged holding all of the cards, and things growing progressively worse the farther down the ladder you go. Wealthy Americans may indeed believe that their healthcare system is the best, because these elites do indeed get the best treatment that money can buy, essentially.
For everyone else, however, the healthcare system is an absolute nightmare. The cost of medicine in the United States is outrageously high. And what always astonished me, personally, is how people can get up in arms - almost literally - whenever the word "Obamacare" is mentioned, yet they seem to find it normal that the same drugs and medicine made right here in the United States is sold often for a fraction of the costs in Canada that it is sold right on the shelves of drug stores in the United States. There is a black market of people trying to obtain more reasonably priced medicine in Canada, where there are price controls, and resold back in the United States, then when it goes straight to the American market. This, after all of the magical deregulation activity that was supposed to serve the consumer and give them a fairer chance at obtaining things.
Hmm...
It is almost like the healthcare industry got together and decided in some backroom at some point that, with no strong regulations in place, they could jack up the prices in order that everyone of them could rake in enormous prices. Almost like the whole deregulation thing that everyone loved for so long actually wound up hurting the American people who favored it.
Huh. Go figure.
Of course, a lot of Americans have indeed realized that the healthcare system in the country is broken, because they were personally affected by it. Many Americans have lost everything - their homes, their jobs, their way of life - because they simply could not afford to pay their outstanding medical bills. Since price caps and government oversight is seen as such a great, big evil in the United States (particularly when it comes to healthcare), there is literally no controlling the monstrous costs of healthcare coverage.
This has led to the black market seeking drugs from Canada, and this has led to millions of people opting not to seek healthcare because the costs are simply too high, and their own healthcare provider (assuming they have one) does not cover nearly enough for them to go ahead and seek the medical attention that they need. Add to that the tens of millions of people who still do not have healthcare, and what you have is a system that should rightly be defined and judged by these extreme weaknesses, rather than by any of the supposed strengths of such a system - even if it does benefit the rich, and those others more fortunate than most of the rest of us.
That is why the American system is seen as a failure by most of the rest of the world, and that is why this particular topic is a hot button issue for every election cycle, and all of the time in between. More than in any other industrialized nation, healthcare debates keep swirling and becoming heated, which itself should be damning evidence attesting to the system's utter failure.
If it is to be judged by the weakest link, than that weakest link would be the tremendous, and generally exclusively negative, impact that it has on ordinary people. There are horror stories out there - one after the other - where people getting procedures that would not financially cripple citizens of other industrialized nations wind up losing everything, because they are expected to pay unbelievable medical bills.
Well, here is another such story, about a British couple who came to America on vacation and wound up having the misfortune of having their baby in New York City unexpectedly. Why would I suggest that this was a misfortune, when having a baby is generally truly a blessing? Because by having had the baby on American shores, they were subject to American prices.
If the baby had come in Britain when expected, the couple would have been just fine. The mother would have had her baby - no exaggerated stories of horrendous waiting lines need apply here - and would have had decent time off to recover and take care of the baby. The father would have had some time off from work as well. And whatever disruption to their normal everyday lives this might have cost, it would not have cost them a ton of money. If there were further medical complications with the new child, the couple would not hesitate to seek medical care for their new child, and their worries would be restricted to the health of their newest addition, and not to how they would have to pay for the staggeringly high medical bills that would have accumulated.
But instead, they had the baby in New York City while on vacation. Welcome to America! Oh, and by the way, you owe us $200,000 in medical expense for having the baby!
Of course, this story became big news in Britain (and elsewhere), because such a nightmare scenario, such a horror story, simply would not happen there, where there are price controls and generally government oversight. In fact, this story would not happen in literally every other industrialized nation in the world outside of American borders. It would not happen in Britain, or in Canada, or in Australia, or New Zealand, or Germany, or France, or Italy, Sweden, Spain, Finland, Portugal, Norway, Austria, Switzerland, Japan, South Africa, Greece, Denmark, Iceland.....well, you get the message. Nope, this kind of thing does not happen in those countries, because they have government oversight. That is not to say that their healthcare systems are perfect. Nothing in this world is really perfect, and every country struggles to make adjustments with their healthcare systems as problems arise, of course.
But each of those countries has something that the United States simply lacks: protections for ordinary citizens. So that they get adequate healthcare. So that they do not get badly ripped off. So that they do not lose everything. So that they can focus on the medical issues that required them to seek medical attention in the first place, and not simply to be forced to exchange their medical problems with burdensome financial problems from the bills accrued while obtaining that medical coverage.
And you know the best part? Those countries are not socialist or communist meccas, with dictatorships that have completely taken over the countries! These are the common arguments that Americans opposed to any substantive move towards a fairer healthcare system make in the United States, and it plays on the irrational fears that too many Americans have about the "socialist" nightmare scenario existing in European countries. But there is no substantive evidence that such arguments hold water, because none of these Western nations with better healthcare systems in place have seen such all-consuming, intrusive governments actually establish a dictatorship, or any such thing. In fact, not only are these normal, Western democracies, but on top of it, it can be legitimately argued that most of these countries are more free than the United States!
What has passed for a healthcare system in the United States is a poor excuse of a healthcare system - and yes, I am talking about both what came before Obamacare, and what is now in place with Obamacare. This system benefits the rich while hurting the poor, and the working class. By now, it is an old story. Most people are familiar with it.
It is perhaps the biggest shame that Americans have, and in this regard, they truly do stand out - but not in the way that most Americans (even American exceptionalists) want to stand out. The rest of the world watches in horror when stories, such as this one with this British couple, emerge from American borders. And perhaps the most damning arguments that I have heard about the American healthcare system have indeed come from foreigners who thank their lucky stripes that they did not suffer the injuries or illnesses that they were forced to seek medical attention for in other countries. I have personally heard numerous stories from different people from other countries who thanked their lucky stripes that they were not citizens of the United States living within American borders, because they know that would have been the difference between being inconvenienced with whatever medical issues that they were dealing with, versus being plagued by those issues and then, on top of that, being hit with unreasonable, incredibly burdensome medical bills.
Perhaps at this point, it is appropriate to use a phrase commonly heard in the United States, albeit normally used in a very different context. Here is the phrase:
Only in America.
But for citizens of every other industrialized nation in the world, this is something to be thankful for, at least when it comes to healthcare.
Here is the link to the article that got me on this subject to begin with:
British Couple Gets Hit With $200,000 Medical Bill Because Their Child Was Born During Their Vacation In NYC AUTHOR: STEPHEN D FOSTER JR JANUARY 2, 2015
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