I’m feeling geriatric. Not just because everyone in my trapeze classes is younger, bendier, fitter and just plain old better than me (although that doesn’t help) but because I just had a flu jab. I thought I might as well as they were on offer but I’ve always seen them as something for the old and infirm. I’m trying to convince myself it was Ok as a)I might not have the same resistance to the germs they have over here and b) as the jobs are covered under insurance here there isn’t an actual outlay.
That rationalisation got me thinking about healthcare here. I now have a theory that the US style of privatised heathcare positively encourages hypochondria. In the UK when you shuffle off to the local quack and say that you have a headache and are feeling a bit miserable – he’ll send you home with suggestions to take an aspirin and have a bit of a word with yourself. Over here they have to check _everything_ so you don’t sue their arses for missing something, however unlikely. So you present with a headache, and before you know it you’ve had MRIs and CAT scans and investigations from all the shiny machines that go ping*. From your point of view, once you’ve paid what is effectively your insurance excess then you might as well have all they can offer you. That just doesn’t seem quite right.
*Of course I haven’t actually gone to a quack here except to get a signature that says I’m fit to drive (total joke because I reckon the recently deceased could pass their test in Pennsylvania). That said I did just get an injection which I’m not entirely sure I need. Is that how it starts?