Speaking of health care, the subject came up as Olivier took me around the city yesterday.
Burundi's health care plan is perhaps one that pure capitalists would dream of. No government run program here. Everyone pulls his or her own weight.
"There is no insurance here," Olivier explained. "There's no public insurance, and no private insurance.
"When you get sick, you pay what it costs. If you can't pay for medicine, then you don't get the medicine.
"If you go to the hospital, they will treat you, but if you can't pay when they have finished, you can't leave. You have people who are still in the hospital months after they are healthy," he explained, noting that the hospital for these debtors becomes like a prison until they can pay.
Don't worry, you soft liberals, there is mercy in the culture if not in the system.
"When people truly are unable to pay, someone eventually intervenes," Olivier said. "Either family or church will come up with the money eventually.
"Sometimes the president de la Republique will personally intervene on someone's behalf."
Oh no! They just ruined a perfectly good health-care plan with government meddling! If we get rid of that part perhaps we will have the perfect counter proposal to Obamacare!
Obviously, I am being sarcastic, we have already talked about some of my thoughts on the health-care issue, but I would think that America as a nation with considerably more resources than Burundi can come up with something -- if reasonable people decide to really look for solutions -- between death panels and debtors prisons.
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