I think that many healthy people are pretty clueless about how devastating obtaining medical care in the United States really is. We all know that it is expensive, but when I say “expensive,” I actually mean “entirely unfeasible for many Americans.” I didn’t really understand either until I went from being a healthy kid to being in the PICU overnight, only to leave with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical debt before my 17th birthday (and I was fortunate enough to have insurance!). I cannot begin to describe the impact this has had on my life. I’m saying this because there’s a lot of insensitivity going around about sick people who can’t afford care… about how they are just “lazy” and want a handout, or how if they’d just get a job, they might be able to pay their medical bills without destroying their lives. Frankly, it’s bullshit.
In a system like ours where care is SO outrageous, and where health insurance is a necessity to make these costs even remotely feasible, it’s not just a simple personal failing due to laziness when someone can’t afford care. Particularly in light of what is going on with the ACA, there are going to be a lot of people voicing their very cruel and frankly incorrect opinion that people who can’t afford healthcare are just lazy mooches who don’t want to get a job. A little bit of sensitivity for such a complex issue would be nice. While there’s plenty that needs to be criticized and targeted about US healthcare, the patients struggling to get life-saving treatments aren’t it, and doing so just diverts attention away from the fact that US “medicine” has become a joke. And I’m saying this as someone in the thick of it, as both a chronically ill patient and a student doctor.
do people in other countries have to consider and save for the tens of thousands of hospital bills when they think about having children
i’m honestly asking, i have other reasons for not wanting children but not being able to afford giving birth is definitely in there
Good lord no. In Australia, medical bills are rarely a concern, and generally don’t factor into deciding whether to have children. You can choose to have fancy private hospital care as opposed to free public hospital care, but free public hospital care is usually pretty good.
Verylisa 