Health Insurance anyone?

From: Health Card USA
Subject: Affordable Health Care has Arrived



I just found this in my Hotmail Junk E-mail Inbox. I was talking about this with my mum the other day - she's had a couple operations on her arm and I was wondering how our system really works, what does she have to pay?

It works like this: You have a card 'worth' about 250 USD (1,500 NOK). When you go to the doctor or the hospital, you have to pay a certain amount, and they put that on your card. My mum has gone to the hospital twice and had two operations - she has to pay some of the tickets to go there, and a 250 NOK fee at the hospital. They write that down on her card. I asked her what happens when she has spent all the 1,500 NOK on her card, when she has paid that much for her tickets, hospital visits, operations, medication. What happens when there's no more 'space' left on her card?

Then everything is free. You should not spend more than 250 USD a year for your health care. The state takes care of the rest. And as if that's not enough, if you have children under the age of 16, their medication and hospital visits are put on your card and count towards your 'maximum spending limit' of 250 USD. What happens if you have a disease and you need medication, but you can't afford it? Well... that just can't happen here.

"So what about health insurance?" I asked my mum. "Well.. I don't know.. do we have something called health insurance?" "I don't know." "I don't think there is something called health insurance.."

I checked it out and found that the biggest insurance companies simply don't have something called 'Health Insurance' or anything like it. However, I did read that some people (2.2%) have got some kind of health insurance, it was a big news article from a year ago, focusing on why people felt they needed it, and I tracked down one company that sells it, and this is what it covers;

• Critical disease - if you get a serious disease (one of 16), they pay you a certain amount of money
• International Hospital Insurance - you get to choose where you want to be treated abroad (if you choose the 'full coverage' type of insurance)
• Scandinavian Hospital Insurance - you get to choose where in Scandinavia you want to be treated

So yeah... extra money if you get seriously ill, or the right to be treated abroad. That's what the health insurance (Vital Forsikring) I could find, covers. I assume they also pay if you decide to go to a private hospital.

But I think it says a lot about how well off we are, how our system works, when insurance companies don't offer health insurance and people don't know what it is, this thing that is so necessary in other countries. I remember watching or reading something, and from time to time there's always someone who mentiones something about insurance, and a typical illustration of how poor and 'careless' a young student might be, is that he or she doesn't even have health insurance!

Well... I don't have it either. I don't need it. And not because I won't get sick. But because if I do get sick, getting treatment, operations, medication, isn't something I should have to worry about. That's what our government does for us. What does your government do for you?