Also, the co-pays can be overwhelming. Even $5 for a Caesarean section can be too much for people as close to the edge as the Yankulijes, who live by growing beans and sweet potatoes and wear American castoffs (Mrs. Yankulije’s T-shirt read “Wolverines Football”).
Apparently there is 92 percent coverage, through a government plan, backed by NGOs, for a premium of $2 a year. It is estimated that the total Rwandan health care bill, in a year, is $307 million. The article is interesting throughout. I liked this part:
“If people pay the $2 and then don’t get sick all year, they sometimes want their money back,” said Anja Fischer, an adviser to the Health Ministry from GTZ, the German government’s semi-independent aid agency.
If a “delivery room” is nothing more than a blue painted room with benches and stirrups, and that counts as “coverage”, it seems to me the focus on public health is really just on providing some ritualized pretense of healthcare.
Can’t the U.S. spend $10 per year per person, or some comparable pittance, and then legitimately claim “universal health care”. It seems to work for countries like Cuba.
“He met an American college student passing through last year, and found it “absurd, ridiculous, that I have health insurance and she didn’t,† he said, adding: “And if she got sick, her parents might go bankrupt. The saddest thing was the way she shrugged her shoulders and just hoped not to fall sick.†
Well, if she was resourceful enough to be “passing through” Rwanda, she’s capable of figuring out how to get health insurance. But why would she? She’s young and would rather spend the money on something else.
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