Murder-suicide prompted by medical expenses

[Grim_Render]

I posted this in another thread on the subject of health care. It seems to be relevant to the discussion here, if only as a point of comparison:

@Grim_Render

*My very local paper ran a human interest story this weekend. It was about a local family whose daughter, at the age of 13 was diagnosed with something like a weak blood vessel in the brain. (Unclippable uncoilable MCA) In a very difficult location. She was put on a “watchful waiting” program. About 2 years ago, when she was 17, there were signs that it was weakening further and might rupture soon. It seems to be a very rare thing, and required specialization was not available locally. The family went to the USA, to a New York based Dr. Amir Dehdashti.
Among the things that were explained to them at the hospital was that a down-payment of 35 000 $ was expected before they even got to see the doctor. That led to some nervous laughter, pf curse it wouldn’t cost them anything. Its all paid for by the health care system.

The operation was successful, otherwise I guess it wouldn’t have made a good human interest story. During the days in New York the family mentions passing an ambulance trying to tend to someone who’d been involved in an accident. The bleeding man did not want to go in the ambulance because he could not afford it. It did make them reflect on how they’d gotten shipped across the world to best specialists, all covered by the Norwegian health care system, while the Americans in the same city could not afford an ambulance.

Which makes me think: If you really need it, the odds of seeing the best specialists in the US are probably better for the average Norwegian than for Joe Average American. Maybe way better. So the current US system is working quite well for us. Not so much for the nation whose people may have to refuse ambulances when injured, because they can’t afford them. And count themselves lucky they were not unconscious and unable to refuse the ambulance.*