It was a freak thing, getting kicked in the eyeball in the middle of the night.
Wes had started crying—bad dream or something—so I went to his room. Just as I leaned over the bed, his foot jerked upward, and in the dark I couldn’t see to blink. The force of the kick was impressive. I went into shock—passed out, threw up, passed out again. But after a while we settled down and all went back to sleep.
My eyeball looked like cherry tomato in the morning, but I could see just fine. A few days later, however, it gooped up and the eyelids were stuck shut. Infection.
So, American health care consumers, what would you do in this situation? Go to an urgent care clinic? The emergency room? Wait for weeks to see your doctor then spend months arguing with your insurance company about the visit?
As a visitor to New Zealand, I walked into a highly regarded doctor’s office and asked for an appointment. The receptionist apologized because she couldn’t get me in until later that afternoon—yes, that same afternoon. I laughed.
After a careful examination (complete with chit-chat! can you imagine?) the doctor handed me a prescription and a bill for $30. The antibiotic eyedrops set me back an additional $3.
That’s a total of $33 for excellent, same-day care. If I were a citizen, it would have been free.
People here are horrified when I tell them that our family paid $1,000 a month for U.S. health insurance with a $10,000 deductible. Equivalent private coverage here costs less than $1,000 a year with a $75 deductible, but the public care is good enough that people often forgo private insurance (by choice, not financial necessity).
There is a whole lot to love about this country’s approach to health care. No system is perfect, of course, but the big picture is that New Zealand provides universal health care that costs a tiny fraction of what our anything-but-universal care does. And their medical outcomes are the same.
One major reason is that the government is allowed to negotiate with drug companies for contracts.
Another is a federal program called ACC, which pays the medical bills of anyone involved in any sort of accident—even an accidental kick to the eye. ACC helps keep costs down overall by reducing civil litigation. People whose medical expenses are covered tend not to sue each other.
Eye opening, isn’t it?
