It's one thing to read the numbers. Now I've been through a couple of French dentists' offices and am even more amazed than I've always been at the fact that we don't have simple, affordable care in our country.
I'm teaching abroad for a semester in western France. I have two kids, one 9 and the other 14. We all had to get international health insurance before coming over here - at U.S. high health insurance prices. This was on top of the regular care we had to continue paying for.
And ... no dental care.
A week and a half ago I got a call from my daughter's school. She had fallen and chipped her tooth. When I picked her up I found out she hadn't just chipped it, but had broken half of it off in a fall in the hallways. The nerve was clearly visible.
After a few difficult hours trying to get an appointment without having a clear knowledge of dentists, the system, or the language, we got in to see one. They examined her and said she would need a "desensitization" or a "pulpefaction." The dentist's English was better than my French, but it wasn't until the next day, when I was sitting next to my daughter and the drilling is going deeper and deeper that these words mean "root canal."
The main reason I didn't get it was that the dentist had told me it would be expensive without French health coverage. I'd have to pay €41.67. These days that comes to about $59. So I assumed this was something very minor, not the kind of procedure that would cost about $450-$600 in the U.S. With a $250 deductible, I figured it was worth it to protect the nerve until we got back to the U.S. and I could get the job done.
We go back tomorrow for tooth reconstruction. Even more expensive at €81. So, just to put this all in dollar-to-dollar terms, I am paying $155 or so for what would cost me $2,000 in the U.S., on average. I'm paying this because I don't have health insurance in France, so this is full price. It all comes to less than a U.S. health insurance company's deductible.
Can someone please find a Republican who can explain, one more time, what it is about our system that makes it the best in the world? The care here has been great, just as good as we'd get in the U.S. The price has been much less. No lines, no worries other than watching a 9-year-old girl undergo a (painless) root canal.
I remain confused about the whole debate. Who could be against equally good care for 1/12th the cost?