The Cost of Medical

I need to take some time here to thank Steve and Lyn for their kind hospitality in St Louis over the weekend.

Steve, Lyn, thank you for everything you did to help us get to St Louis, enjoy our stay and show us around as best you could in the circumstances. Kelly and I really did appreciate the whole weekend. From the delicious meals, to the taxi service, to the warm beds and football tickets we had a great time. You made us feel very welcome. Thank you again.

Today, after nice sleep in, Luc made his second trip to the doctors just to make sure he was on track for a good recovery. This got Kelly and I talking about the difference between our health care at home and the health care here. At home, medical is free. There are no employee medical plans or anything like that. It’s paid for by the Government out of the taxes we pay them and our medications and prescriptions are heavily subsidised using the same funds. It doesn’t matter whether a stomach ache keeps you off work for the day or a severed artery has you on your death bed, medical is free.

You can pay for “private” health care which some people do as it guarantees no queues and your choice of doctors when something does goes wrong but for the most part, not alot of people take this option. 

The two visits we have made to the doctors with Luc this week cost $95 each and the antibiotics he was suggested cost another $55. That’s a grand total of $245 in 3 days. We find this absolutely incredible. How can the average family afford to pay this? Unannounced, your baby gets sick and you’re up for the best part of $150 before your day even starts? Wow. I haven’t seen “Sicko” by Michael Moore yet but I will as soon as I get the chance.

Outside of that little experience we did “2/5ths of bugger all” and retired early again. I did get a start on updating the site which you will see the fruits of tomorrow and Kelly was able to get some clean clothes into our wardrobes.

Exciting huh?