One reason I will most likely want to slap someone upon my return to Indiana...

I will preface this post with saying: I have never punched or slapped anyone in my life. I have wanted to, but I never have.

Ever the planner, I have started to imagine what life will be like when I return to Indiana in a year. Today I was thinking about how hard it will be to return to work. Not that I don't like working in the pharmacy. I actually quite enjoy it. But the first person who comes in and complains about their healthcare or their insurance may just get slapped. And most likely this will happen my first day back. Because daily I hear people complain about healthcare in the States.

Most people complain about American healthcare. I won't ever again.

Lets look at these two real life examples of some of the healthcare differences between Haiti (representative of many of the developing world's countries) and the United States.

Example 1: U.S. Healthcare

In preparation for our trip to Haiti I made an appointment with my primary care physician for a physical. I can call the office anytime during the week and make an appointment for any reason. Pretty cool if you think about it. I got in my car at my leisure and drove the 15 minutes to my physical. I paid $15 to see the doctor, the insurance covered the rest. The doctor was concerned with a previously unseen curvature in my spine so she referred me to an orthopedic specialist. Four days later I got back in my car and drove 5 minutes to the orthopedics office. I paid a $20 copay for the specialist and in several minutes he came in for an exam. Certain enough, I had a curve to my spine so he wanted an xray. I walked across the hallway and had the xray (no additional charge). I sat back in the room for 10 minutes before the doctor came back and pulled the xray up on his computer. He noted that I do in fact have a 15 degree curve in my spine but the xray makes him think it has been there a long time and just went unnoticed. A definite possibility since my last physical was in high school. Not because I didn't have the chance, but because I am lazy... and pretty healthy. So, he will do an xray in a year when I get back to make sure there is no further progress but he said it would be a one in a million chance there will be any change. So I got back in my car and drove home, stopping for a Starbucks on the way. Total cost to me was $35 and about an hour of my time. Of course it probably cost a bit more once you factor in monthly premiums taken out of Aaron's paycheck, but regardless of the cost, I had quick access to outstanding healthcare and practitioners.

Let's compare this with

Example 2: Hatian Healthcare

Nadine is a young woman who lives in poverty, like all in the city of Chambrun Haiti. Luckily there is a clinic staffed with two American nurses, a Haitian doctor, and an Austrian doctor who see patients for 25 goude (about 40 cents) Monday thru Friday. Nadine heard about the clinic and came to be seen because she has been suffering from a back injury... for 8 years. Her history is a bit fuzzy (it is next to impossible to get a good medical history from people) but around 8 years ago her back started to deteriorate. At that time she had no money or access to health care and never received any treatment after. So she steadily lost spinal function to the point she can not walk on her own. There is no xray machine or specialist at the clinic so she was referred to an American orthopedic doctor who works in a clinic in Port au Prince, nearly an hour away. Since Nadine has no money, and no transportation she had to wait for a time when someone could drive her to the city and the doctor would be available. This took nearly 8 weeks. Finally she made it to the orthopedic who examined her and wanted xrays and some blood work done. But there is no xray or lab available at that office. So Nadine had to be driven another hour to the the children's hospital that has these things. The xray will cost $25 (which is about what she makes in an entire month). But the lab wants morning urine for the testing (by this time it was mid afternoon) so they wouldn't do either test. They told her to come back some other morning. So she now has to find another ride some morning (all the time holding her bladder for the testing an hour away). Who knows how much the testing will cost. Then she will go back home and wait a few weeks or months for the xray and lab results. Then she has to physically go back to the hospital to pick up the results then reschedule an appointment with the orthopedic. Perhaps another 8 weeks for that to happen? And all this time and money may result in the news that "there is nothing we can do... you will be crippled all your life because of our failure to provide adequate healthcare in the first place". I guess they may not state it that way exactly but, you get my point.

So back to Indiana. I know I can't really blame the multimillionaire who lives in Bridgewater and had to make the tough decision between driving the Lexus or the Porsche to the pharmacy 3 minutes from their home to pick up and subsequently complain about their $10 prescription which they believe Obamacare has screwed them over on.

Is the U.S. healthcare system perfect? No. But it sure is better than what Nadine has available to her. Can you hold the American coming into the pharmacy liable for pure ignorance? I mean, they probably have no idea how the other 90-some percent of the world lives. But that doesn't mean I won't want to slap them any less. You have been warned.