License to Get Ill
This week, I have been interviewing sales reps for the various private medical plans which have been recommended here. It is a whole new world for me as I have been lucky enough with my health that the rather dishevelled NHS has always been adequate for my needs.
Here in Argentina, there is a public health system, but everyone is very scathing about it and says that only the poorest of the poor use it. A common joke is that as long as you are dead, they will see you straight away. Although I have to say that people here do tend to be very scathing about many things, which have actually turned out to be fine in practice, it is not something I want to take a chance with given the not-so-super prospects if I follow in my mother’s medical footsteps. Who knows, I could be dancing the tango at a sprightly 96. On the other hand, I could be making strange noises and keeling over any time now!
What with owning the flat now and staying in one place for such a long time, it looked on close inspection like travel insurance was not likely to cover much if I got sick here, so I took the radical step of not taking any out this time. Yikes!
So the parade of minor ailments that has passed through my system a lot of the time since I have been back has given me the impetus to do something about it. My friend Gabi started sending me information about medical plans minutes after learning that I had passed out and I have actually followed up on them and had reps in my home this week talking up their plans.
I have rejected at least one simply because I didn’t like the rep. She was not very straightforward and I got the impression she was trying to take advantage of my foreignness. Apart from that, she said she had lived in London 25 years ago and found the fog a real problem. Eh? I pointed out that that problem had been solved in the 1950s and she looked at me blankly. Then she said how awful it was to have temperatures of minus 40 in the winter and I said “In London? In 1981?” and she assured me it had been that cold with snow so deep it was impossible to get out the front door. Eh?
I think I have chosen a company called Medicus. They can cover me for the whole of Argentina and in fact, I can extend to international for an extra four quid a month as and when I go out of the country. It costs a little over five hundred quid a year, which includes everything except glasses and false teeth. Of course, being English, I am just adjusting to the notion that I have to pay at all before I sign the contract, though it has to be said that it is easy to spend just that on routine dental work in London, so I am certainly not going to claim this is a rip-off.
The main reason this plan is better than the others is that total cover starts the day after I sign the contract. So I could sign up now and spend the next week having check-ups, getting vaccinations, being prodded and scanned… or even developing a life-threatening disease if I so choose. I could start a whole new career as a hypochondriac in fact. The other reason is that there is a choice of facilities - some of the plans are linked to one hospital only.
They even offer psychiatry, which might be a laugh. Especially in Spanish. I do need to practise my past tenses and how better that telling a total stranger about my childhood.
Here in Argentina, there is a public health system, but everyone is very scathing about it and says that only the poorest of the poor use it. A common joke is that as long as you are dead, they will see you straight away. Although I have to say that people here do tend to be very scathing about many things, which have actually turned out to be fine in practice, it is not something I want to take a chance with given the not-so-super prospects if I follow in my mother’s medical footsteps. Who knows, I could be dancing the tango at a sprightly 96. On the other hand, I could be making strange noises and keeling over any time now!
What with owning the flat now and staying in one place for such a long time, it looked on close inspection like travel insurance was not likely to cover much if I got sick here, so I took the radical step of not taking any out this time. Yikes!
So the parade of minor ailments that has passed through my system a lot of the time since I have been back has given me the impetus to do something about it. My friend Gabi started sending me information about medical plans minutes after learning that I had passed out and I have actually followed up on them and had reps in my home this week talking up their plans.
I have rejected at least one simply because I didn’t like the rep. She was not very straightforward and I got the impression she was trying to take advantage of my foreignness. Apart from that, she said she had lived in London 25 years ago and found the fog a real problem. Eh? I pointed out that that problem had been solved in the 1950s and she looked at me blankly. Then she said how awful it was to have temperatures of minus 40 in the winter and I said “In London? In 1981?” and she assured me it had been that cold with snow so deep it was impossible to get out the front door. Eh?
I think I have chosen a company called Medicus. They can cover me for the whole of Argentina and in fact, I can extend to international for an extra four quid a month as and when I go out of the country. It costs a little over five hundred quid a year, which includes everything except glasses and false teeth. Of course, being English, I am just adjusting to the notion that I have to pay at all before I sign the contract, though it has to be said that it is easy to spend just that on routine dental work in London, so I am certainly not going to claim this is a rip-off.
The main reason this plan is better than the others is that total cover starts the day after I sign the contract. So I could sign up now and spend the next week having check-ups, getting vaccinations, being prodded and scanned… or even developing a life-threatening disease if I so choose. I could start a whole new career as a hypochondriac in fact. The other reason is that there is a choice of facilities - some of the plans are linked to one hospital only.
They even offer psychiatry, which might be a laugh. Especially in Spanish. I do need to practise my past tenses and how better that telling a total stranger about my childhood.
posted by Rachel in Buenos Aires at 9:18 am
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