In my 14 years of stay in the USA, I never had to visit any hospital for any emergency. Whatever good or bad things I read about the American healthcare system I read through social media, news articles, and other people's experiences. But this year, in September I had to visit the emergency room because my wife got a bad infection from India and she had a high fever that refused to go below three digits. This was my first real encounter with the "American Health Care" system. I agree that American healthcare needs some urgent attention. Some areas need the attention of lawmakers, policy experts, and all other stakeholders of this system so that something can be done to make health care affordable to everyone in this country. This USA really has all the resources and capabilities to make this happen, it just needs a little bit of social and political will to fix the system. I firmly believe that, if the USA can't make health care affordable to its people, then no other country can even dream about any such thing (I am talking about countries of similar size and population).
I have seen two different types of healthcare systems, one in India and one in the USA. The best part of the Indian health care system is there are many choices of different doctors so most of the middle class and even lower middle class can afford to bear the health care treatment costs for nonemergency health issues. The most messed up part of the Indian healthcare system is emergency care. Hospitals can refuse to admit or treat a patient until the required amount of money is deposited, this is the case with most of the private hospitals where most people go in the case of emergency. Government hospitals are free in India, but hardy people choose this option because of a lack of proper facilities or overcrowdedness. This is where the USA's health care differs from Indian health care. In the US emergency room treatment is offered without any questions about the ability to pay for it. But, the downside of this is that emergency rooms are unnecessarily crowded as many people who don't have health insurance go there to get treatment even for nonemergency reasons, and hospitals can't refuse to treat such patients as it's against federal law.
My wife received all the required treatment, medicines, and other things (food, etc.) without depositing any single dollar at the hospital. They did ask for health insurance information, but that didn't affect the quality of her treatment. Of course, the treatment is not free and we did receive the bill in the mail a couple of weeks after her discharge. But hospitals don't refuse to discharge the patient for nonpayment or an outstanding bill or stop the treatment in the middle if they sense that this patient may not be able to pay for this treatment, this I feel is a big plus for the American health care system. No doubt, that like many other good laws and policies, this law is also abused by some people who purposely misuse this system to get the treatment for free. I think this is one of the main reasons why health care is so expensive, as people who can pay have to bear the cost of all nonpaid bills. Hospitals don't even ask for your immigration status, they don't care whether you are a visitor, an American citizen, or an alien (someone on a visa), they treat every patient visiting the emergency room irrespective of their legal, social, or economic status.
American health care attracts a lot of bad press, and many people complain about this system. But at the same time, there are many good things about this system. The emergency care aspect of this system is amazing, saving someone's life when they need medical help in a medical emergency can't be valued in money. I wanted to share my personal experience to highlight this very important aspect of American health care. Of course, health care in America is very expensive and something should be done about it, but just because there are some problems with this system it shouldn't stop me from praising some good aspects that are absent in many other countries (like India).
Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.
Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.
