Growing up in the Mahoning Valley, living in Italy provides a perspective on health care

EDITOR:

Originally from Hubbard, I graduated from Youngstown State University and have been living in my wife’s home country of Italy for 10 years. I work in a health-related field and recently a friend back home asked me for medical information. In describing the situation she explained that “she has good insurance so whatever the best therapy is ...” Ten years ago this reasoning would not have fazed me. Today it has moved me to write this letter. Is it right that a person who happens to have (good) insurance is entitled to the hope of a cure, of living longer, of suffering less?

My experience under the Italian national health-care system has been positive. The service was provided when needed, just as police/fire protection were provided and my children were educated. I had always had coverage in the U.S. and, although the specter of losing it was always there, I never noticed it until we moved here and I felt its weight lifted. I wonder how many of your readers have had important life decisions influenced by something that every person in every other developed economy now takes for granted.

Our extended family has had what I would call average interaction with the Italian system: three births, two heart attacks, cancer and hospice care, a gallbladder removal, two major orthopedics, four cataracts, a detached retina, pediatric trauma care and all of the relevant rehabilitation, to name major interventions. We chose our family physician and can change at any time. Visits to specialists must be referred by a family physician, a symbolic fee ($5 to $20) is associated with some services. Medications rarely cost more than $3, generics are free. Home medical service is available 24/7. One rainy night our first child had a high fever and we, being new parents, panicked. Within an hour the physician’s examination excluded the meningitis that we had feared. There was no extra cost. I also like the emphasis on preventive medicine here. Some avoid long waits for elective operations by using a parallel private system run by the same doctors and hospitals for these. My total tax burden amounts to 37 percent of income.

This is the Italian solution. The U.S. has the chance to invent a system that reflects the needs of her citizens, and in the process head off the projected skyrocketing cost increases that threaten to bring both economic and physical suffering. The U.S. spends more than any other country in the world on health care: 16 percent of GNP, with the prospect of this doubling within a decade . You can argue, against statistics showing otherwise, that the quality of health care is better. You should also factor in the intangible peace of mind and freedom that comes from undoing the shackles of employer-provided coverage. And why should this burden fall on our struggling companies? Those of you who have “good insurance” should remember that global competition and the rising cost of health insurance are making it increasingly difficult for companies to cover their employees. You need to think beyond your present situation and consider your children and their children. Everyone needs to look beyond the rhetoric and see medical care for the highly technical service that it is. The combination of millions of families exposed to the limitations of the present system by the economic crisis and an administration that has made this issue a priority should ensure that progress is made. The efforts to establish a more efficient, less profit-driven system cannot be allowed to fail.

These days we are overwhelmed with information and it’s hard to find time to sort it out and think it through. Forces on both sides of every argument are more than happy to think for us, to find the hot buttons that pilot our hands in the ballot box. Important issues should never be decided based on who is better at finding those buttons.

RICHARD VERNELL

Refrancore, Italy

X The writer is a 1980 graduate of Hubbard High School and 1988 graduate of YSU who works as a freelance science and medical writer.