If only New Zealand weren't so darned far away

Friday, Oct. 30, 2009

In its July 2008 issue, the British Medical Journal cited the U.S. as the nation with the most expensive health care in the world. It ranked the U.S. at the bottom of 19 industrialized nations. And it pointed out that health care expense is our leading cause of personal bankruptcy, or so my brother-in-law said. He, my sister, and their daughter moved to New Zealand in 2002 to accept a job he couldn't refuse. They intend to stay. Why? Health care.

Two years after settling in, my sister came down with throat cancer. She was treated with chemotherapy and radiation, a stomach tube, periodic throat stretching and special nutritional supplements. She just reached the five-year mark and is considered cured, a feat that required four physician specialists and two physical therapists, hospitalization and in-home nursing care. She said it would have cost her family well over $40,000 in this country. In New Zealand, it cost her nothing.

Last year, my niece had her gall bladder removed: three days in the hospital, a visiting nurse and medication. Now she and her mother have what insurance companies in this country call pre-existing conditions and probably wouldn't qualify for health insurance here.

Last month, my brother-in-law had his deviated septum repaired. He no longer snores, a happy turn of events, but not something our health insurers would have covered.

To hear my Kiwi family tell it, doctors were highly skilled and readily available. No long lines, no insurance forms, no refusals to treat.

Yes, they pay more in taxes than we do. My brother-in-law, who consistently votes as a conservative Republican in U.S. elections, calls it "health insurance we can depend on." He also told me that, according to the Auckland TV news, more than 750,000 Americans travel overseas every year for medical procedures they can't afford at home: mostly hip and knee replacements, heart surgery, and hysterectomies.

By the way, the New Zealand government pays for my sister's oncologists twice a year, all her medications and her ongoing need for supplemental nutrition. Last year, her dog bit her, tearing her right cheek open. At the local emergency room, a doctor examined her and then sent her to plastic surgeons at another hospital because the wound was on her face. She was in the hospital for three days, received 26 stitches and has had two more surgeries to minimize scarring. All expenses were covered by the government, and it will continue to pay for 60 percent of scar minimization procedures as long as the doctor considers them necessary.

Ahh, if only New Zealand weren't so darned far away.

Patricia Dunlap, Tall Timbers