gas in prague - $4.19 per gallon
cassandra
location: at the Home for the Bewildered
listening to: old stuff, new stuff, borrowed stuff, blue stuff
registered: 2003.03.17
posts: 1538
[view all posts]
[view all posts]
abridged from NY Times:
In the Czech Republic, you can now see a doctor for about $1.85. A day in the hospital can verge on $4. This is not cause for celebration.For Czechs, who visit their doctors more often than anyone in Europe, it has led to great outrage. In fact, the idea of charging anything at all for health care can generate significant controversy, not to mention abrupt about-faces in policy, here and in other Central European countries.In Hungary, health care fees were resoundingly defeated in a nationwide referendum in March, which resulted in the firing of the health minister. For healthy people with jobs, the fees are quite literally pocket change, usually paid with the same 10 and 20 crown coins as streetcar tickets in Prague ($1 is worth around 16 crowns). Affluent Czechs will admit privately that they spend far more on veterinary care for their cats and dogs than their own medical care, even with co-payments for some medications.But many Czechs see it as a matter of principle that health care should be free — though the system is financed in part through payroll deductions — along with a strong sense of solidarity for the poor.“We try to take out some of the costs that people can pay for themselves from the health care system,” said Tomas Julinek, the Czech health minister, in an interview in his office last week. But there is a cap on payments, set at just over $300 for the year, which Mr. Julinek said would also protect the seriously ill.
C
cassandra
(view)
abridged from NY Times:
In the Czech Republic, you can now see a doctor for about $1.85. A day in the hospital can verge on $4. This is not cause for celebration.For Czechs, who visit their doctors more often than anyone in Europe, it has led to great outrage. In fact, the idea of charging anything at all for health care can generate significant controversy, not to mention abrupt about-faces in policy, here and in other Central European countries.In Hungary, health care fees were resoundingly defeated in a nationwide referendum in March, which resulted in the firing of the health minister. For healthy people with jobs, the fees are quite literally pocket change, usually paid with the same 10 and 20 crown coins as streetcar tickets in Prague ($1 is worth around 16 crowns). Affluent Czechs will admit privately that they spend far more on veterinary care for their cats and dogs than their own medical care, even with co-payments for some medications.But many Czechs see it as a matter of principle that health care should be free — though the system is financed in part through payroll deductions — along with a strong sense of solidarity for the poor.“We try to take out some of the costs that people can pay for themselves from the health care system,” said Tomas Julinek, the Czech health minister, in an interview in his office last week. But there is a cap on payments, set at just over $300 for the year, which Mr. Julinek said would also protect the seriously ill.
