First off I wanted to say that I am thrilled for Kate and William. If for no other reason than it means that Princess Diana (GRHS) will have grandchildren. It would be a shame to let that gene pool from her die off. I'm happy for Diana wherever she is.
On another note I may take the thread off on a tangent but here goes. I had the pleasure of being in London several weeks ago. Unfortunately for me the first thing I had to do upon landing and checking into my hotel, was to go straight to the ER of a local hospital. I'm fine now. It was just a bad UTI infection that I needed treatment for, ASAP. Fortunately it was not bad enough for them to admit me. My point though is that I worried about how much it would cost. I had some travel health insurance. (I would never travel without it) But it was only $10K worth. And I knew the deal was that I would have to pay for any health services up front out of pocket and then get reimbursed for it later. I'm not the kind of guy who has $10K or more available on my credit card.
My own insurance is no good overseas. I knew that in the U.K. that healthcare was supposed to be free to citizens there. But of course I'm not a citizen. So with some trepidation I walked into the Urgent Care section of the hospital and saw this sign:
"If you are a citizen of the U.K. or if you are not, all services here are free. The only exceptions being some surgeries and some hospitalizations."
I waited only about 2 hours (in a decent waiting room with a flat screen tv) to see the actual doctor. I've waited many times for 6-7 hours (and more) in American ER's for treatment. I was treated very well and very professionally. The very handsome British doctor (
) gave me a script for an antibiotic. I worried about where I would fill the script in a city I wasn't familiar with at all. So I asked if I could get it filled at any local pharmacy. He said that I could
not fill it there. That this script could only be filled at the hospital's own pharmacy. Then he told me where the pharmacy was. Instead of sending me out the door with a paper script to scour London for a pharmacy...while I was sick...I had to go 15 steps down the hall to get my medicine. Oh darn! haha Then I worried about how much the medicine might cost. It was only 7 pounds! The whole ER visit, including the medicine, cost me 7 pounds. Or about $12!
And I'm not even a citizen of Britain. From start to finish I was there less than 3 hours. And I took the antibiotic before I even left the hospital. Britain can afford to have a NHS. (National Health Service) But the world's only superpower can't. It was an interesting civics lesson. So not only does the royal family get free medical care in Britain...but so does every "common" citizen regardless of their income level or social status.
Compare that to an ER visit here where you wait 7 hours or more and then they send you home, sometimes not with real treatment yet...but with a stack of scripts. Then you have to drive to a pharmacy where you may wait another hour or so (while you're sick) before they fill your scripts. Then you pay a large fee for the drugs. Then you get the humongous hospital bill and if you even have insurance you can only hope that the insurance will pay most of it.
As I say, it was an interesting civics lesson.
