During that time I dreamed about how to return eventually--if not before--to living abroad as I did briefly in my 20s. Europe and foreign cultures and languages fascinated me, although I have never proved much of a foreign language speaker. I subscribed to newspapers from New Mexico, a state I perceived like no other in the US, more foreign than any other in the union; I read The Economist magazine weekly; I pored through issues of the International Herald Tribune--a daily that overwhelmed me sometimes . . . I could not keep up. Even took French and German lessons. Basically I couldn't get enough of what it must be like living in a foreign land but residing in place in my own.
During those Vail years, I observed the tea leaves, or crap shoot, of the American healthcare system, a system for profit, not so much about health. I clearly saw that other countries, even Eastern Bloc countries, had a more humane outlook about healthcare services, and living life, than such was obvious in my own country, something I was somewhat aware of in my 20s when residing and working in West Germany (Munich).
Then at the end of that decade, the 80s, I saw how to return to Europe and do good work, something more meaningful than serving wealthy people who didn't really need me, my skills, my interests. Others elsewhere needed expertise I had. I decided to make the leap into the known unknown, live in a former communist country and exist as others did while at the same time contributing what I could, if what I had was wanted and useful. If I didn't have the advantage of the advanced technical medical expertise at hand, for a healthy price, in America, and was in danger of pain and death without the latest, most advanced care, why, all those living there lived and died as they did, or would. I could do the same. Why did I need what my own country had available if most of the world, I thought, lived without whatever that was?
Because of necessary ongoing care after my first heart attack in 1992, today I have health records in six languages, the first/oldest of which is in French. Under care abroad I got first hand knowledge how the French approached serious problems like mine. Two and two makes four, then and now--reading about something and experiencing it delivers more certain knowledge.
To cut to the point. I would not be able to take the six medications required daily for my health maintenance in the US because of cost. Socialized medicine gives and has given me a lease on life with almost no lease payments. My meds cost me about a dollar a month. And three hospitalizations? I paid nothing for excellent care. None of the dreaded nightmares of socialized medicine have I encountered in all these years (going on 25), except perhaps in Italy, a westernized country, and according to WHO, with almost the best healthcare system in the world, a claim I (still!) strongly question. (Again, Italy is different kind of country and another story.)
While on leave in the US during the last twenty-five years and just before I left to live as we do here, our touted system cost me half my life's savings, in the tens of thousands of dollars. Part of that money lost was for the same procedure I had had at the same hospital two or three years before by the same doctor. Not elective but absolutely necessary heart surgery. The insurance company had no mercy because I didn't call ahead for approval.
I am a socialist, at least as far as healthcare is concerned. I am a socialist in that the state pays my required fair share (about $100 per month) toward health insurance because I am a poor pensioner by local standards. I am a socialist because I get to ride free as a senior on public transportation in Prague. And what else? I accept the authoritarian approach to the current health crisis in today's world (2020). And I do what they tell me. They have approached the problem by anticipation and preparation and a populace that every day helps to solve problems by volunteerism, and humor. I am not afraid of socialism if by what we mean is that the state takes care of some necessary stuff to live and get along in a civil society--e.g., education, healthcare, generous vacations for regeneration, etc.
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| Believe this propaganda at your own risk. |
What a country! Shoot 'em if they have a different view than you do. Solves the problem quick and easy . . . open gun stores during a pandemic because it is an essential service/business? Give me a break.
