Nixta Sinks

I got back from the UK and decided that I should have a few medical check-ups done - it's been a while and I've not been feeling too good for about 6 months now. A great deal of that has been to do with stress, I should think, but still worth having my leprous face checked out. The way that works in the US is that you go and see a doctor, and he refers you accordingly. I went to see two specialists.

With my insurance, for which I pay $370 a month per person (for me and the DMC), I still had to pay out the following:

Doctor	$25
Specialist 1	$50
Specialist 2	$50
Prescription 1	$10 out of $10.71
Prescription 2	$10 out of $35.68
Prescription 3	$77 out of $77.00
Total	$222 (or about £112)

My insurers opted out of paying a penny for one of my three prescriptions (coincidentally the most expensive). Now, I can happily afford this (though I feel strongly that I shouldn't, on top of the $740 I pay out each and every month), but what if you can't? Medicare is worthless in this country. The first thing you're asked for on a visit to a healthcare "professional" is some proof of means of payment (be it insurance card or credit card). On the flip side, so far the treatment has been working, which is more than can be said for the crappy remedies that the disinterested GPs threw at me in the UK.

And I have to go back to see these specialists in three weeks' time at the cost of $100 combined for them to tell me it's all OK.

It's a scam, I tell you. At least the doctors I saw this time seemed to be on my side (as opposed to the half-dead ones at Fitzroy Square) and had nice desks and heavy grade business cards, but there was unidentified spillage on one of the beds and the nurse that took my blood sample left me bruised and bleeding.