According to Mercer's Cost of Living Survey, Seoul is the 5th most expensive city in the world. Although it's ridiculously cheap to visit right now, considering the won's weakness, it's still expensive for those who are getting paid in won. If I wasn't losing so much money in the currency exchange, I'd be seriously at risk of blowing a lot on a shopping spree when I return to the States.
However, there are some oases in this mark-up hell; one is medicine.
After getting over a cold about a week ago, I was dismayed yesterday to feel the symptoms returning. Strangely, though, they were accompanied with another: my left eye felt sticky. To further confuse me, last night I realized that the stuffiness was only in my left nostril. Usually, when you have a cold, the stuffiness will oscillate between the left and right nostrils, but this one wouldn't budge, though I slept on my right side all night.
This morning, it occurred to me that instead of a cold, these might be allergy symptoms. I've been eating a lot of leeks lately, and somehow I remember that when I overdose on them, I tend to have a slight allergic reaction. So I took some benadryl and headed to work.
The stuffiness dissipated, and the sticky feeling in my eye left, but they were replaced with something far worse: drowsiness. I'm a sucker with meds: kids' Tylenol can knock me out. After stumbling through my three classes, losing my train of thought multiple times, I decided to call it a day and go home.
I slept awhile, then went to an ENT clinic for some meds. The waiting room was all granite, with leather chairs. When I walked into the consultation room, though, I knew the place would be costly.
There were two tv screens, one for the doctor to see, and one mounted on the ceiling for the patient. Feeding into the tvs was a camera. The doctor stuck the camera down my swollen throat, then stuck it up my nose. The right nostril first, then the left.
That was embarrassing, watching it on the screen. As the camera captured my enlarged nose hairs and yellow infected mucus, I felt horrified, especially knowing that my friend was probably watching it as well. It's like somebody walking in on you naked...dancing to Shakira...not that I ever do that, of course. EVER.
The doctor, like the other Korean doctors with whom I've come into contact, spoke English. He told me that my something something was infected (pointing it out on the plastic model) and that the infection had spread down into my throat. When I asked if it was a sinus infection (it's my annual visitor), he said no, and pointed out my sinuses, then the something something under my sinuses. (As if I understood any of that. All I got was the gist: 'infection, take pills').
I had my credit card ready. I only had 10,000 won, and somebody has to pay for that fancy equipment, right? Cost: 3,500. Pills: 2,500.
6,000 for a doctor's visit and medicine? My co-pay in the US is $20!
I know it's not just a good insurance program: medicine is just much, much cheaper. I know, because when I had my traveler's shots, which are not covered by insurance, they were still cheap.
Which brings me to the question: why is medicine so much more expensive in the US? Is it because there are too many lawsuits filed against doctors? Is it because too many people visit hospitals to get drugs? Is the US a leader in medical R&D and raises costs to cover research fees? Is it because Korean western medicine needs to offer an affordable alternative to the competing 한약, or Oriental medicine?
I don't know the answer; all I know is that I'm going to try to get as many things fixed as I can before I leave!
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Answer:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul339.html
That article was OK; he goes into a lot more detail in his book.
The problem is that health insurance isn't insurance at all.
Car insurance is for when your car gets hit and you have to fix it, not to get regular inspections and your oil and tires changed.
Health insurance should work the same way. The reason it's so expensive and broken is that American society uses it for every little thing instead of what it really should cover: hospitalizations and emergencies. It's a ridiculous situation. We use health insurance for everything, so it costs us - and our employers - thousands of dollars a year. People feel like they'd better get their money's worth, so they use it on unnecessary visits en masse, and so the cycle continues.
Doctors charge a fortune because in general we don't care how much it costs - insurance will cover it. (Besides that, they have to pay enormous fees for malpractice insurance against frivolous lawsuits - something else which needs to be addressed).
If we were to return health care to a more market-based system, a better sense of equilibrium could be achieved.
Doctors would have great incentive to reduce costs for patients to attract and keep business.
Even if doctor visits ($100-300) and drugs cost the same (they wouldn't; the costs would go down drastically due to price awareness and competition), there are many people who are still better off visiting the doctor and paying everything out of pocket than paying the ridiculous cost of health insurance - their incentive to purchase it, of course, is for emergencies and hospitalizations.
People who unnecessarily visit the doctor all the time for every little cough or hiccup (because insurance covers it) now would have to pay for it. This makes health insurance cheaper all around, because you and I aren't paying for it anymore. Less doctor time is wasted on these chumps and they can see patients with real needs.
For people with serious conditions or injuries, cheap health insurance is there to assist them.
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