"Nine million children without health care," blasts a TV advertisement. Yes, that's nine million American children without healthcare in one of the ... no sorry, the most advanced industrialised economy in the world. This in a country which is literally bleeding itself into the sands of the Middle East. No wonder that many Democrats are making health care one of the big campaign issues. No wonder, too, that some of the more progressive New England states are bringing in a form of state-backed health insurance, no longer prepared to wait as the big private health lobbies ritually halt any change to a system that does not work.
Just in case any of the pointy-heads who run any of the corporate-sponsored so-called British think tanks are in the process of wining and dining government or opposition ministers and spokesmen, here is something to stiffen the resolve of faint hearts who can't see the profound merits of the National Health Service.
I have just received a letter from North Eastern Recovery Inc, debt collectors to the New York School of Medicine's emergency department in Manhattan. A Mr Jack Graves, writing on behalf of this very American ambulance-chasing outfit wants $280 in respect of emergency treatment given to my daughter last summer.
The hospital is across the street, fortunately, and a very good one at that, but when my daughter was taken there last summer, we had no idea that the surgeon on duty was not linked to the private health insurance company that covers my family. And because he was not linked to Care-first, he wants to be paid, and because I thought he had been paid through the insurance policy, I never sent him a cheque. Hence the letter from North East Recovery Inc, which threatens dire action if the bill isn't paid.
In order to find out exactly what has gone on, it has taken the best part of a year, innumerable telephone calls and claims that my insurance policy is disputed because my parents are members. Hilariously, not only do my parents not work for the same company as me, they are retired and have never set foot in North America.
Astonishingly this sort of thing happens regularly - and often for much larger amounts. Imagine being taken to casualty with - say - a broken leg, which could set any private insurance company back over $60,000, but in great pain, you forgot to ask the surgeon which insurance company he operated under. Imagine being insured, but still being forced to pay the bill because you had failed to ask the most important question. This is precisely what happens to thousands or ordinary Americans all of the time.
In the United States a costly operation can lead to a home being re-possessed or bankruptcy. In the United States, the non-insured can get basic treatment, but not specialised treatment, and in the United States, even if you are insured and injured, fight off the anaesthetist, even if you have lost both legs, at least until you know who is going to, er, foot the bill.
