Our Hospital Adventure

October 31, 2008 - 1:24 PM by

Big government is making a big comeback, what with $700 billion bank bailouts, so the term “socialized medicine” isn’t as scary as it used to be. And we all know how expensive health care is in the States. But, as the old saying goes, you get what you pay for. Despite the high cost, “everyone knows” how much higher the quality of health care is in the U.S., and how inferior it is in countries with socialized medicine, like the U.K., where people have to wait for months for simple procedures, and those who can afford it flee the public health system, and go private.

clalit.jpg

Having lived in Israel for some 15 years – moving here from the U.S. before the huge increase in health insurance costs – I can’t speak of what typical Americans, or Britons for that matter, have to go through to either get or pay for health care. I can only speak about what I’ve experienced here in Israel.

I bring this up now because I – and my wife – have just had a hospital experience. She was “in” for a couple of days last week for a procedure (let’s just leave it at that). This isn’t the first time, of course – we’ve had three of our five kids here. And in her previous experiences, she would have at least partially agreed with the conventional wisdom that private medical care is better.

But things have changed dramatically over the past few years; the service is no longer surly, and even the old, broken down hospital seemed brighter and spiffier this time around. Hospitals aren’t a pleasant place to stay, no matter what, but the hospital she had to spend a night at while she recuperated was completely refurbished, with pleasant chairs and plenty of light. Some of the personnel weren’t as pleasant as we would have liked, but I have seen far worse behavior on the part of hospital workers in the States – and in Israel, hospital staff don’t immediately call in security when you would put up an argument with them. They even seem to have gotten the paperwork right – one form was all it took, and she was enrolled in the computer, with all the information transmitted to all the appropriate departments immediately.

And the total cost for everything – would you believe 130 shekels? That’s about $35 in today’s money. Although many pundits would say that Israel is losing its socialist spirit (the official poverty figures can be pretty shocking), it’s clear that that spirit still reigns supreme in health care. True, it’s more expensive that it used to be, but try even talking to a doctor in the U.S. for $35.

It was a real surprise to an American immigrant who still expects Israeli medical care to be second rate – the whole process was pretty first rate, as far as I could tell. There seems to be a lot of that going on in Israel today – take highways and roads, for example. All sorts of new highways seem to be popping up all over the place; you can get around the Tel Aviv and even Jerusalem metropolitan areas pretty quickly now. But don’t we pay excessively high taxes for all this? Nope; if you live in the New York Metropolitan area and include your state, city, federal, and real estate taxes, it doesn’t really add up to more than we pay here overall. Pretty shocking, huh?

Tags: , , , , , , • Category: General 

Comments

One Comment on Our Hospital Adventure

  1. Mimi on Sun, Nov 2nd 2008 11:17 PM

    2. My late Dad had two open-heart surgeries, orthopedic surgery and physiotherapy, and received a pacemaker here in Israel – and all he ever paid for was the taxi fares.

Leave a Comment





© 2012 ISRAELITY | Site by illuminea | Sitemap