GRAND FORKS -- My girlfriend and I recently visited Rome. While there, a stray cat attacked her. The injury was bad enough to need a doctor, so we visited a hospital's emergency unit and waited less than an hour for care.
The doctor wrote a prescription and gave my girlfriend a shot to ease the pain. We had no idea what to expect in respect to cost; Italy has a universal health care system, but we were not citizens.
The doctor visit cost us nothing, and we paid $50 for medicine.
We contrasted this experience to a previous visit I had made to a hospital in North Dakota. My eye developed sharp pains whenever I blinked, and my vision was blurred, so I went to the emergency room. It was much less busy than the bustling ER in Rome, but I sat there for more than three hours before the doctor could see me.
A nurse finally let me into an exam room, where I waited another 45 minutes. The doctor finally came to look at my eye and told me to go to an eye specialist. He did not write a prescription or give me any directions for pain management. He did not even stay in the room long enough to answer my questions.
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Inevitably, the bill arrived. The visit cost $408, with no medicine.
This is anecdotal evidence of the value of universal health care. But it's not enough to conclude that the U.S. ought to have universal health care.
But the fact is that the U.S. pays more for less care than do other countries with some form of universal health care. These systems are not perfect, and anecdotal evidence also can be given in opposition to universal health care. But with 45 million people uninsured and many more underinsured, the U.S. paying more than any other country on health care and the U.S. being 37th in overall health performance (according to the World Health Organization), it's obvious that we spend too much and receive too little.
The U.S. is the only wealthy, industrialized country that does not have a universal health care system. For these reasons, I support HR 676, which would expand and improve health care for all American citizens.
Christie, a member of UND's Students for a Democratic Society, is a member of the North Dakota Peace Coalition's Steering Committee.
