Reply #129: comparisons

[juvpubdef]

I currently live in Louisiana, but when my children were born, I happened to be living in Cologne, Germany. I was not in the military service, but happen to be married to a German citizen, so as we both worked, and both paid into that system, the births of our children were covered by German health insurance. On each occasion, we were lucky enough that the births were relatively uncomplicated, but still, my wife, and infant child were able to remain in the hospital for several days. Then, when they did come home, we received daily visits from a midwife practitioner, who monitored the children's' care and development, for as long as we felt we needed her input. (Although we didn't need her for very long, she would have been available to help us with child related medical issues up to the child's 18th birthday.) Other than our very reasonable health insurance and tax costs, we paid nothing at all.

On one occasion, when I went to the pharmacy to get a prescription filled for my son, I went to the cash register to pay for his medication. I don't know who was more surprised-me, at the fact that, because he was a child, his medication was free, or the cashier, who didn't understand my confused attempt to pay.

Now that we live in the US, and our children are going through normal childhood, we have had the unfortunate opportunity to compare the current German system to the current American system. Recently, my son received a cut on his forehead while playing with a friend. We took him to the emergency room (it was a Saturday evening), and while he was lucky enough to require only a butterfly bandage, rather than stitches, that visit cost nearly $1500 out of pocket. At the time, I was employed by the state, and had a relatively good insurance plan.

During a subsequent summer, while visiting his grandparents in Germany, my son fell out of a tree and broke his wrist. Two pins were surgically implanted, and later removed. During the healing process, he had to go to the doctor's office twice, and had to be x-rayed. Because we did not live in Germany, we were not covered by health insurance there. The entire cost of the treatment of his broken arm, including the two surgical procedures, and several office visits with x-rays, was slightly less than the bill for the emergency room treatment of his small cut.