It’s very easy for a European to feel very smug about socialised medicine. \u00a0Maybe the American system isn’t as bad as all that. \u00a0Maybe we should be a bit more open about its merits. \u00a0And maybe we should, in the process, ignore cases like that of JoAnn Knutson.<\/p>\n
Knutson was 72, and had a fall at her home in Des Moines, Iowa. \u00a0Her husband,\u00a0Richard Toews,\u00a0couldn’t lift her. \u00a0For four days, he provided care for her as best he could while she lay on the floor. \u00a0And then she died.<\/p>\n
Now: there’s an obvious question here. \u00a0Why the hell didn’t he call an ambulance? \u00a0And the answer is simple: Toews was concerned that he wouldn’t be able to afford it. \u00a0Capt. Steve Brown of the Des Moines Fire Department told the Des Moines Register<\/a> that<\/p>\n an ambulance costs about $575, plus $8 per mile. \u00a0People who can’t pay the fee on time can set up a payment plan. Taxpayers pick up the tab for trips that go unpaid.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So Toews was wrong about the price – in part. \u00a0But the fact remains that he still had to worry about it to begin with. \u00a0Presumably, to get the taxpayer to cough up, there’d have to be some process of proving his inability (otherwise noone’d pay). \u00a0And, in a situation like his, that’d perhaps not be the first thing on his mind.<\/p>\n OK, OK. \u00a0Four days should have been plenty of time to sort that kind of thing out. \u00a0But that still leaves untouched the supposition that it needs to be sorted in the first place. \u00a0For the time being – well, the availability of a payment plan for an ambulance doesn’t seem like much of a reassurance. \u00a0I’m going to retreat back into smugness about socialised healthcare for a while.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s very easy for a European to feel very smug about socialised medicine. \u00a0Maybe the American system isn’t as bad as all that. \u00a0Maybe we should be a bit more open about its merits. \u00a0And maybe we should, in the process, ignore cases like that of JoAnn Knutson. Knutson was 72, and had a fall […]<\/p>\n