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stirling710 -> RE: A question for Canadians, Brits and any other citizen of a country with nationalize health care (10/9/2013 1:18:53 PM)
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I've had two serious emergency room admittances in my life, both life threatening.
The first was due to toxic algae (they think) served up on a softshell crab in North Carolina. At twenty minutes I started feeling ill. At thirty I told my girlfriend I needed to get to emerg. At forty, as I stumbled into the the little clinic, my vision was greyed out, I couldn't breath, couldn't form coherent sentences and I could feel my body shutting down. I managed to tell them I thought it was the crab, and collapsed on the floor at their desk. The kind nurse helped me into a chair while my girlfriend gave all our insurance details for the form and put a hundred dollars cash down to cover the deductable. I couldn't believe they were waiting on the paperwork, but they did. They were however quite professional once it was squared, got me in a room, gave me O2, gave me whatever shots were required.
The second was caused by going too fast on my bike down a hill in Vancouver. I wiped it out, hit the pavement face first, broke a lot bones and had internal bleeding. The ambulance scraped me off the pavement, I went through two operations, including more plastic surgery than most of Hollywood stars (and came out better looking too [;)]). I spent a week in hospital on some really great drugs, and had three specialist followups. Total cost, $85 for the ambulance ride.
In both cases, insurance covered most of the cost. The kicker is though - I was a student for the bike accident, with no parental support. US style medical insurance would have been beyond my reach.
Draw your own conclusions.
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