Usually, yes. I can call the 800 number on the card I’m given to carry, and a day or two (or more) can be added, if my trip needs to be extended. The additional premium will get tabbed to the credit card I bought the original policy with.
Good question, by the way. My last flight out of the US was horribly delayed, and I was thinking I might have to make that call. In the end, I did not, but it was nice to know that I could extend the policy just by making a phone call.
Australians visiting the UK (and vice-versa) get free healthcare under a reciprocal Medicare/NHS arrangement; New Zealanders visiting Australia also get free medical care and vice-versa
AFAIK, the same goes for EU/EES citizens travelling to another EU/EES country. You have to bring a card showing that you’re covered in your home country, though.
I still buy travel insurance when I’m travelling abroad, though. I particularly like the text on my insurance card saying “repatriation expenses: unlimited”. That means that if I’m better off being treated at home, my insurance covers a private Lear jet trip if necessary.
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It’s a curious thing, but my anecdata (from following a fair number of US travel messageboards) suggests that people in the US can be far less clued up about the need for insurance cover when travelling abroad than people in the UK (who don’t normally have to bother about such insurance at home): but we’re used to having both medical and cancellation insurance pushed at us as part of the process of buying tickets and package holidays. It’s not usually that expensive.
Not quite - the EHIC card gets you access to local public medical services on the same terms as local citizens, which is not necessarily the same thing as you would get in your own country. People from the UK are often surprised to be charged for an ambulance when abroad for example (but they can reclaim it from the NHS when they get home).
Everybody should have travel insurance when travelling, but its still true that I could travel all over the world and yet its good old land of the free most powerful country in the world America that people are most scared of getting sick in.
Get sick in a bunch of third world shitholes and you’ll be sick for a while, get sick in America and maybe your parents have to sell everything they have and organise fundraisers in the local community just to get you home.
Such a country.
My regular health insurance covers care received abroad. We are traveling to Georgia next month (the country, not the U.S. state), and I bought travel insurance for the first time for that trip. My medical insurance would have covered me in Georgia, but I wanted the medevac/repatriation insurance. Medical care is waaaay cheaper in Georgia than in the U.S., but they don’t have the same availability of anything sophisticated if needed. I don’t expect to need anything sophisticated, but on the off chance I do, I don’t want it to bankrupt me.
I was surprised how cheap it was to buy emergency medical and medevac-only coverage: $30-some for the trip (we get trip interruption, lost baggage, etc. coverage through our credit card, so I didn’t see the need to duplicate).
The small handful of times I have paid out of pocket for medical care outside the U.S., the whole service provided was cheaper than my copay for a routine appointment at home. Throat infection with name-brand antibiotics in Mexico? I think around $40 for exam and drugs at a very clean private clinic. The same in Spain, when I was a student and should have been covered on the national plan but hadn’t yet received my health card? Exam was free, though I had to wander around with a high fever explaining what was wrong with me, and several clinics didn’t know what to do with me because although I told them I was willing to pay a doctor out of pocket, they had no idea how to process my payment. (Finally an ER doctor took pity on me and examined me for free and gave me an antibiotic prescription - this was 1988, so I don’t remember how much it cost, but no more than a few dollars - well, pesetas at the time.) A similar thing happened in England when my bum foot was acting up - the local GP saw me for free because she didn’t want to figure out how to take my money, and a 99p tube of ointment fixed me right up.
One of my co-workers has a Panamanian wife, and on a visit to her family, he ended up in the ER with food poisoning. A day in the ER in Panama cost him less than his ER copay at home - he didn’t even bother submitting a claim.
It boggles me how many people are scared of being treated for routine medical issues abroad. The biggest problem I ever had with that was figuring out how to get someone to take my money.
(ETA: the one exception was 1989 in Leningrad, when I got an impacted wisdom tooth. The dentist poked at it and said, “yeah, that’s a wisdom tooth. Wash it with warm tea three times a day and take aspirin for the pain.” But in that situation, the problem was late-perestroika lack of medical supplies - what I really needed was antibiotics, but those were a black-market item, and I was not about to have an impacted wisdom tooth extracted in a country where one couldn’t rely on sterile instruments. Insurance wouldn’t have fixed most of that situation, anyway.)
I see that the NHS in the U.K. recommends residents traveling abroad get a European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) which “may” entitle them to reduced cost or “sometimes” free health care in other countries:
“…in some countries, patients are expected to directly contribute a percentage towards the cost of their state-provided treatment. This is known as a patient co-payment. If you receive treatment under this type of healthcare system, you are expected to pay the same co-payment charge as a patient from that country.
The EHIC also covers the treatment of pre-existing medical conditions and routine maternity care, provided the reason for your visit is not specifically to give birth or seek treatment…
The EHIC is not an alternative to travel insurance. It will not cover any private medical healthcare or costs, such as mountain rescue in ski resorts, being flown back to the UK, or lost or stolen property. It is also not valid on cruises.
It is therefore important to have both an EHIC and a valid private travel insurance policy in place before you travel.”
When I read this yesterday, I was too embarrassed to write what I’m about to write. It reeks of ignorance and a mindset influenced by personal poverty - both of which I hate to admit. But having gone w/o health insurance and all but the most basic of preventive health care at Planned Parenthood for seven years, it did not occur to me when going to Canada for my honeymoon in 2007 to get travel insurance. If I read about it I automatically assumed I couldn’t afford it, crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. I was lucky then.
Times have changed; thanks to the ACA I can afford a monthly premium that’s much lower then premiums before ACA, (though still higher than that Iggy was quoted for a 45 year-old Canadian male); and w/ that underpinning I’m motivated to get a travel policy just popping up to Alberta for a few days next month.
My health is worth it and I can afford it, I remind myself.
Yep - that’s not a bad idea no matter where you’re travelling, if your own health coverage might or might not help out. Even if it will, you may have to pay up front then try to get reimbursed.
Of course, in other countries, the cost of needing emergency care won’t be quite so life-altering as here in the US (a friend’s son had an emergency appendectomy in Hungary; they had to pay for it. 600 dollars - which wouldn’t cover a half hour in the emergency room here).
Still - when my son went to Europe last year I got emergency evac insurance (didn’t try to purchase the health insurance until too late, so the evacuation was all I could get).
It’s fairly reasonable in cost - when I looked up the cost for a 16 year old who was coming to visit, it was less than 40 dollars. Might be more for an adult. And our college-age students have always had similar $1M coverage during their stays.
The EHIC (which is free, I have one) is not valid in every European country, yes, and in some place there are some costs, yes. I check before I go what the conditions are. However, the potential costs are, frankly, peanuts compared to the figures people from the US talk about, we’re largely* talking ‘may have to pay $50’ level here, which could come as a surprise for UK residents, who are used to no fees at all.
*OK, sometimes you may apparently get a larger charge and have to reclaim it from the NHS. I’ve never met anyone that has happened to.
Though I’ve never had to use medical care overseas, I have multiple friends who have; from minor injuries to having an appendix burst on a flight. None got stuck with any fees worth mentioning (one, in Finland, who’d injured a foot, asked how much it would be, and they straight up laughed at him and said ‘Pay? What? Of course you don’t have to pay!’. Incidentally, he is not European, so of course did not even have an EHIC).
Here in the UK, I automatically get worldwide travel insurance for myself and my partner ‘free’* as part of my bank current account. It includes up to £10 million for emergency medical cover, including USA and winter sports, such as skiing.
*I pay a small monthly fee for a premium bank account.
This is bizarre.
I’m a US citizen living overseas and have no problem buying health insurance for trips to the USA.
It used to be free , from my credit card company, as long as I had a certain balance in the account.
Why would he need his employers health insurance for a short visit to the USA?
It’s a negligible cost to buy a special policy for each trip.
The insurance for my vacations costs less than the bus fare in New York for the shuttle bus between the 2 airports.
(I pay $2 per day for full coverage in the States.)