Originally Posted by
747FC
As I said in an earlier post, this is--or should I say--was, a great thread. However, rather than continue to provide useful information about how to navigate the Italian medical system, unfortunately the OP has drifted off into bashing of American healthcare. That is clearly OMNI/PR material and has no place in this useful thread.
Not bashing, just ranking, which by independent standards puts us below Domenica, and just ahead of Cuba. It's great that politicians now agree across both parties that our medical system is broken, instead of with absence of data, just repeating the mantra, "We have the best health care system in the world." The data are out now (data is a plural word, so "are" is correct).
The purpose of this thread was not to bash the broken USA health care system, but to give people confidence that when they are in Italy if health care problems arise, they will be in good hands.
Upthread someone mentioned that when they got sick in Italy and were taken to a hospital, they were concerned about what type of health care they would get in, "a third world country." As someone with 40 years of experience working in health care and health care policy in both countries, the purpose of this thread is to inform travelers that is not the case at all, by objective standards.
You don't need to hire a jet to get back to the USA for health care if you are in Italy. That's not bashing, it is the message. I saw surgeons in Italy doing operations that are unimaginable today in the USA, and I am the former Chief at Harvard. So, the message is, don't worry if you get sick in Italy. In the USA 60% of bankruptcies are due to our extraordinary medical bills. In Italy it is free, and no one goes bankrupt because of medical bills, even non-citizens on vacation.
So just hang loose when you are there.