Ezra Klein has a friend who got airlifted to a small town in Germany after an accident in Sierra Leone. Now he’s stuck:
My friend does not speak German. He does not know anyone in Germany. He wants to come home and receive his care in the states. He wants a doctor he can communicate with and nurses who can understand his requests and friends who can speak to him and calls that aren’t subject to international fees. But his insurance is refusing the request. Medical treatment, they’re arguing, is simply too expensive in America.
….My friend’s insurers are not lying to him. They are not making a capricious decision. They simply have no wish to pay American prices when care can be obtained at German rates. And so my friend and his family must now focus their days and nights worrying over what to do, and how much to spend. As for the rest of us in America, we pay these prices anyway, and never realize how terribly we’re being ripped off.
Just keep telling yourself: best healthcare in the world, baby, best healthcare in the world. Say it often enough and you might even believe it eventually.
