Your Friends at Mutual Community

Posted at 5:30 PM, Tuesday, July 17, 2007

My not-so-big latest news is that I injured my back. Things started feeling a bit fragile on Friday, and then standing for services on Saturday was rather difficult. I thought I was being very very careful on Sunday, and then suddenly TWANG! It was all over. That evening, when Yonatan asked me to fetch something for him, I pointed out I was walking like an old lady. He exclaimed, "But Ima! You ARE really really old!" We're going to have to work with him on being a little more tactful.

If this had happened to me in Ambridge, I would have gone to see my beloved chiropractor Wade Kosis at the Ambridge Chiropractic Clinic. But chiropractic is relatively new here in Australia and is still regarded quite suspiciously. Australians take their aches and pains to physical therapists--or physios as they are affectionately known. Physios here diagnose as well as treat, and that's exactly what happened to me. Mark the Physio diagnosed me as suffering from an unhappy disc in my lower spine. He massaged around the area, applied heat, and subjected me to a brutal twenty-minute exercise period. I went home with a support strap to exercise my back, lots of instructions, and a command appearance back at the office the next day. Today, two days after the initial injury, I'm feeling about 1000 times better and am just about ready to face a full day at the office tomorrow.

I picked the PhysioNow clinic out of the phone book. It was close by, and it also accepted our private insurance. It's true--in addition to being covered by the national Medicare plan, we also have private health insurance. In fact, on the day we were getting set up here, we visited the Mutual Community office before heading on to the Medicare office. Mostly, of course, this was an accident of geography, but the synagogue president was adament that we seek out private insurance in addition to signing on to Medicare.

I don't know a lot about the history of private healthcare in Australia, but clearly it's been around for a long time. There is a whole network of hospitals that accept private patients only, and several of these even run their own emergency rooms--only for patients with private insurance. Many people prefer private hospitals, although the public hospitals seem to provide more comprehensive care. So, for example, a woman may plan to give birth at a private hospital, but will be transferred over to Women's and Children's Hospital if the baby is premature or born sickly.

The insurance itself is not expensive. We'll pay about US$2000 this year. This seems like an absolute bargain to Bobby and me, who used to pay twice that in America just for the promise that our insurance company might look after us if something went disastrously wrong. We had our catastrophic plan for 4 1/2 years. But since we never even came close to reaching our $5000 deductible, we were never able to claim any benefits. Our Mutual Community coverage is exciting, because it actually pays for things. It pays a part of our dental care and provides a modest reimbursement for the purchase of glasses. It paid for my entire physio visit yesterday and part of the visit today. If any of us should require hospitalization, we can go to a private hospital if we choose.

While it's nice to get these extras, I find the very idea of private insurance in Australia quite creepy. There is no question that the Howard administration has been increasingly pushing the benefits of private health insurance. Australians are now required to have private coverage past the age of fifty. If they haven't bought the coverage, they are assessed an additional fee for their Medicare coverage which is roughly equivalent to what they'd be paying for private supplementary insurance. Six months after we signed up for Medicare, we received an official letter noting that we'd enrolled in Medicare and kindly informing us of the benefits of purchasing private insurance as well.

Coming from America, I can't imagine how PM Howard could possibly think that private health insurance is a better way to go. Certainly, Australians won't stand for it. Although people grumble from time to time, they are very proud of their health system and seem absolutely committed to preserving it. Count me in. I declare periodically that if I can help Australians to appreciate their superb public health system a little bit more, I'll have served my purpose.