Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Sick? Injured? Move to Korea.

I went to the hospital today to have my persistent ankle injury checked out. It's much better than it was but I rolled it three months ago (a few days before I left) and it's still a little touchy. I walked into the hospital (without an appointment) and within 5 minutes was talking to the doctor. 10 minutes later and I was getting an X-ray. 5 minutes after that, the doctor determined that my bones looked good, so it was probably a ligament injury. I then walked across the hall for 45 minutes of physical therapy.

The cost? 8,900 won, or under $6.

Which of course begs the question: why, in America, do we pay exponentially more money, for exponentially poorer care? So my doctor can get the Maybach instead of settling for the Mercedes?

3 comments:

Jon C said...

dude, that's pretty amazing. just wondering, was this before or after health coverage? This is Jon Chan by the way.

James P said...

Hi Jon! I do have health insurance . . . or at least a national health insurance card! My employer pays half, and my half is less than 100,000 won a month, or $65.

Sam L said...

Do take care of your ankle while you can! I tried to convince a friend (in his early 40s) to come out of retirement, and his answer was "if there was a magic to replace my ankle, I'd love to play."