by Joe Kirkpatrick

My wife and daughter spent six weeks in Costa Rica last summer. While there, my daughter Ashley ate some bad food and got very ill. The woman they were staying with told Elaine (my wife) even though they were tourists, Costa Rica has universal health care, and she could take Ashley to the public hospital and there would be no charges. However, she said they might be there six or seven hours until they could see a doctor (not that much different than an emergency room in a public hospital here in the US). She said there was a new private hospital they could probably go to and get treatment much quicker, but, of course, not free of charge.

Elaine took her to the private hospital, which she described as being as nice as most any private hospital here in the US. At their emergency room, they took Ashley right back to a treatment room. By this time, she was severely dehydrated, so they put an IV of fluids in one arm and one of antibiotics in the other. They took blood and sent it to their in house lab. All in all they were with her for about two hours. Before discharging her, they gave her five prescriptions, filled by their in house pharmacy. All of the prescriptions were drugs from American drug companies. Elaine gave them her Visa card, dreading what the charge would be. $195 for everything!

When they got back in the country, my good friend who has a practice in Chattanooga and was previously an ER doc reviewed the charge and he estimated the same visit to an emergency room here in the US would have been at least $2800.

I then looked on the internet and found the US is the most expensive in the world, yet in our quality of medical treatment, we are 35th in the world. Costa Rica, however, is one position ahead at 34th.

I am not in the medical field, but my assessment of the problem is if the insurance companies and attorneys were removed from the equation as they have been in Costa Rica, affordable health care could be possible here. Upper management of health care companies enjoy a lavish lifestyle of mansions, private jets, and golden parachutes.

The amount of money they make borders on the obscene. I am all for free enterprise as long as it involves a product that is electively purchased by the consumer. I have no problem with payday advance, rent to own, pawn shops, and etc. because the consumer has a choice. I am normally not for government intervention into private enterprise, but due to the cost of health care being grossly inflated by insurance companies, hospital corporations, and the legal system, I'm afraid it is needed. Another problem, of course, is American based pharmaceutical companies charging more for their drugs here than they charge in other countries. That must also be regulated.

Another big part of America's health care problem is the lifestyle of many Americans. I helped arrange financing for my doctor friend in Chattanooga to get started in his practice. He planned on having a small practice based on spending quality time (1 hour) with each patient, encouraging each one to adopt a healthier lifestyle to improve their health. I told him he was crazy - that the average American is lazy, and they don't want to be healthy, they want a quick, short-term fix for the moment. After starving for the first two years, he finally started giving shots and drugs. He told me the first year of doing so his number of repeat patients increased dramatically, and his income more than doubled.

Up until 1973, Volkswagen put a very efficient but hard to clean oil bath air filter on all of their cars. In 1973, they started putting a conventional easy to change paper element filter (but less efficient) on cars shipped to the US because they said Americans were too lazy to clean the oil bath filter, so they (Volkswagen) were having too many warranty claims due to the customers laziness. Volkswagens shipped to all other countries kept the more efficient oil bath air filters. This can easily be compared to many American's approach to their personal health as well.

I personally think the health care industry in this country is too far gone for internal reform. We place such a high value on everyone's individual rights, and everyone is for health care reform, as long as it doesn't change anything in their life. The economics of reform is that most everybody, except the uninsured, will have to give up something. The insurance companies' massive profits will have to be limited, and liability claims will have to be severely capped. With the influence of the very rich on our lawmakers, I just cannot see any major reform happening in the world of private health care.

My option would be for the government to gradually implement it's own healthcare over a fifteen year period. That will be sufficient time for the companies who thrive off the current privatized system to gradually downsize. Private companies could still operate, as they have in Costa Rica, if they desired to do so, but could then benefit from the caps placed on liability the government would no doubt put in place on their own program. This would make the private company's insurance more affordable as well.

From the Internet: Why is it - - - when you cross the North Korean border, you get 12 years hard labor - - - But if you cross the US border illegally, you get a driver's license, social security card, and free health care?


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