We live in three countries, in a way. There’s the country in which we spent the first 40 years of life, then there’s the country we live in physically, and then there’s the country in which we listen to the radio. This radio station talks about politics a lot – the Prime Minister and some very colourful (sic) politics. (We’re not always attentive, having shook ourselves awake one day saying, it is no use being moved to vote for the leader of the Kingdom in Which One Listens to the Radio.)
Currently, the Kingdom in Which We Listen to the Radio is spending a lot of time tangled up with The Former Colonies right now, that country having cast aspersions on The National Health Service - and if we can believe the radio, the claims are not without merit.
Risking sounding like we are indulging in a kind of schadenfreude (a word that comes from neither of the languages we speak), we are comforted that we physically reside in another country altogether. Our health care est un miracle, carrement. But should it be such? It was not until we’d lived in L’hexagone for some time before we came to understand what it was to have problems, worries and challenges, yes, but that getting a doctor’s care or affording medicines or landing in the hospital is not one of them. What a massive relief.
And it set us to thinking about health care in the native land, and wondering who would not want this, who does not deserve this, remembering being a freelancer and being worried literally sick about this – and thinking but yes:. there are people in our country of birth who believe in their hearts that people who have not managed to snag a decent health plan from a decent job are losers. The American dream – the American responsibility – is to earn the daily bread and the hospital, too.
But now that we have lived in the country where – day by day - one does not live in fear of doctor’s bills - now that we have tasted this non-fear – and knowing that it is for everyone – and seeing just how it recedes into the landscape where it belongs – we feel ever so strongly that there are areas in which market must not rule. Yes, ok, it costs a bomb, and humans know how to abuse it – so we can’t continue like this forever, and it will be necessarily adjusted – but doucement, doucement. Our hearts are in the right place, and thank God we’ve got them covered.
