Surprisingly, I have just found American healthcare to be both very thorough and not as expensive as is often made out.
Tuesday evening in Chicago I had a “low blood sugar incident” while walking to a restaurant, and ended up collapsed in the (wet, rainy) street. Passers-by called an ambulance and I recovered consciousness just as the ambulance arrived at the hospital. I tried to explain that I would be perfectly OK once my blood sugar was back at normal levels, but they hung on to me for the next 4 hours.
I saw 2 doctors, and was given a number of blood tests by the rather attractive young nurses. Eventually they released me at 11.00 pm, so I could walk a mile back to my hotel in the rain.
What did they charge me for this? Nothing. $0.00. Not a bean. Surprised, but pleased.
The US does have public hospitals Public hospital - Wikipedia which treat people who can’t afford to pay and which, I guess, will also treat those who can if the real-world cost of the treatment is small, as it probably was in your case.
When we lived in the US I was given various bits of ‘orientation’ advice in my first day or two. I was presented with a laminated card detailing my healthcare arrangements and told, by my closest work colleague, “Never leave home without this. If you do, and you’re in a car accident, the ambulance crew will go through your pockets looking for it. If they can’t find it then they’ll take you to the public hospital.”. The unspoken implication was that I would probably die there, because public hospitals were such bad places.
I don’t know how good or bad they actually are. I suspect Americans have been indoctrinated by the private healthcare sector into thinking that just because you can’t see the doctor when it suits you rather then when he/she has the time you will get second-rate attention. And who wants that ?
In a nice mirror experience, a few years ago my brother and his American wife and their kids were staying with us when my teenage nephew developed a UTI. He and his mom recognised it because he’d had another one a year earlier. His mom asked how she could get hold of prescription antibiotics - she even knew the name of the ones she wanted. Mom, nephew and I went to our family GP, explained things to the receptionist who said the doctor who was doing ‘emergencies’ that day could see them in half an hour. I asked about charges and she said “It’s up to the doctor, but to be honest for something simple involving a child she may well not bother charging”. And indeed she didn’t. As well as examining the lad and writing the 'scrip she also explained to mom that UTI’s in teenage boys were a real rarity and she should follow it up when she got home. In fact it turns out he has a quite serious, although perfectly treatable, kidney abnormality which his US healthcare provider had not previously checked for.
I was at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, which is Chicago’s teaching hospital. The head nurse told me that if I had American insurance they would have charged the (small) cost of the blood testing directly to the insurance company.
My travel insurance meant that, although I was covered, they would have to extract the cost from me and I would have to claim it back - and they couldn’t be bothered. The head nurse made the decision.
I was rolled straight out of the ambulance into the ER, and saw a doctor within 5 minutes.
I don’t think it’s changed much in a long time. I was in Vegas for a few days in 1982 and remember walking through the big halls filled with slots and, at 09:00, also filled with OAPs (mostly). Each participant had a heap of quarters which they were feeding into the machines as quickly as possible. Some were playing more than one machine simultaneously, to increase the rate of money-burning. They pay back a fixed percentage, of course, say 85%. So this is just an engine for turning every one of your dollars into 85c for you and 15c for the house. To win you have to play a few times, strike lucky and then walk away. They never walk away.
