No Universal Health Care for the USA!

Iceland is considered to have one of the best universal health care systems. For our first 6 months here we had to buy Icelandic Health Insurance but then universal health care kicks in for us too. Sounds good - no health insurance premiums and very low charges for services so everyone can have access to health care. Sure sounds great and it would be if it worked. But just an example of how it doesn't works in Iceland. Gummi, a friend of ours, called the hospital emergency number Sunday night because he thought he had pneumonia. The doctor never returned his call so he went to the hospital when it opened at 8 AM Monday morning. The doctor prescribed medication. Gummi said he wanted a chest x-ray because he was sure he had pneumonia. The doctor call to get approval for the x-ray. Sure enough one lung was full of fluid. They gave him more pills and sent him home. We saw him about 7 PM and he looked and sounded terrible and was having a very hard time breathing and it was mentioned he looked blue around his mouth. At midnight they were at the hospital because he could not breath. The Doctor was very upset Gummi had not been put him in the hospital in the morning because his oxygen level was too low. He called to get him admitted but they would not admit him. The Doctor then gave him steroids, muscle relaxer, and anti-biotic all via injection and sent him home with more pills to take. Valla, his wife, said she was up most of the night because his breathing was so noisy and if it wasn't she was afraid he wasn't breathing. He had to go back to the hospital again this morning to have his oxygen levels checked and they put him on additional medication. The doctor last night said he belonged in the hospital and yet he did not have the authority to admit him.

You have heard my opinion on universal health care before when we were serving in Romania. But Iceland is supposed to have the best health care of all Europe. Just a note about Romania again. This past month a missionary was hit by a speeding car and his face hit the windshield. He was rushed to the hospital and was told he only had a broken nose. They fixed the nose and sent him home. He stayed at the mission home so they could watch how he was doing. After a couple of days he started feeling worse so the mission president made several calls to Church health officials and determined it would be best to fly the missionary to Germany to have him examined. There they discovered multiple facial fractures and they had to insert plates and screws to fix everything. Thanks to good Doctors and care he is doing fine and back serving in Romania.