Monday, July 6, 2009

Random thoughts about health care

On my way to SFO on a recent Saturday, my Morrocan taxi driver was telling me how difficult it is for him to afford good health care for his family, yet he was grateful for San Francisco's comparably good system of public clinics. But he doesn't understand why Washington folks keep talking about health care reform while the problems get worse. Good question.... When I arrived in Barcelona the next day, I discovered that I left my asthma medicine home. In the US, if I walk into a pharmacy having an asthma attack, even the best places would make me wait until they check my prescription on the computer and of course make me pay. Here, I went into a farmacia, made my best attempt at asking for the medicine in broken Catalan and Spanish, and within less than 2 minutes, I had the medicine in my hand available for immediate use. And the price? The total price was about half my share of the cost at home with insurance coverage. Something about this doesn't make sense....