10.29.07

Adventures in Socialized Medicine

Posted in culture, family, kids at 7:41 am

I’ve always struggled with understanding the health system here in Italy. I’ve heard it described as excellent doctors that have to fight crippling bureaucracy. And the few times we’ve had to go to the doctor, that’s what we’ve experienced. Italy has “free-ish” health care for all citizens, but since we have an American health insurance policy, the bureaucracy gets even thicker for us.

But we’re taking the plunge. I went to the health department to find out what I needed to do to buy into the system. For a total of €380 and some change, my entire family can be covered for one year. So for roughly $550, most doctor visits, most tests, and most prescriptions are mostly paid for. There’s a lot of qualifiers in that sentence, I know. We’ll see how it goes. I’m pretty much going to need to forget everything I know about how a doctor/hospital is supposed to run. But considering that my American policy costs about $5,000 per year, with a $1,000 deductible for each of us, I can’t see how we can go wrong. Just a few doctor visits per year would more than pay for it.

And get this - the nice woman at the health department explained that the $550 is per calendar year, so if I paid now I would have to pay again in January. But she talked to her boss, and he agreed to give my wife and kids free care until the end of the year. It’s not much, and apparently it doesn’t matter if something happens to me, but I thought it was nice that they at least did something to help out.

And so what if the hospital in Ancona is a big, scary, gray, communist-era-looking building. What could possibly go wrong?

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