Health Insurance

Our latest adventure involves getting health insurance here in the Czech Republic. There are several private companies that sell it to foreigners at about the same rates as the US and of course it covers nothing. The Czech government also offers insurance to it's citizens and to foreigners so we decided to try and apply for that. We went to the foreign office where the woman spoke pretty good English, but we took a friend along anyway. We got all the forms and information and then were told that we had to have a physical from one of their two doctors. We called and made an appointment that we went to on Friday. It was in a building directly across the street from the cemetary,....hum.....It has been 40 years since I have had anyone draw blood without wearing rubber gloves. I was handed an old measuring cup and Ken a plastic drinking cup and told to get a urine sample. The Doctor spoke almost no English and had a manual typewriter that she used to type up the form. She also used carbon paper to make a copy for her files,....don't know where to even buy carbon paper in the States! She wanted to know what our parents died of and if our siblings were healthy. Ken told her he was taking pills for blood pressure and offered to show her what it was and all she wanted to know was if he took one or two pills. I told her about my high blood sugars and she said there was no sugar in the urine so she wasn't going to write it down. She did a quick exam, heart lungs etc and then she took our blood pressure and Ken's was 150/95,...a little high even for him. Then she took mine and it was 150/95. Since mine always runs about 110/60, I asked her to take it again and she did and got the same result 150/95. I tried to tell her I thought there was a problem with her machine, so she took our friend/interrupters blood pressure and guess what it was??? 150/90. She assured us that it was not a problem because we were probably all just nervous!!! I certainly was after that!!! The final event however was when she handed us our blood samples and told us we had to take them to the lab ourselves! We thanked her and asked if she would be our regular doctor in the future and she assured us that she would not. She only does the exams. So we drove to the other side of town where we handed off our blood to some woman in jeans in the hallway of some building! We should get the results in about a week and if we are approved,.....we get Czech health insurance, I think,...I know all of this sounds crazy, but somehow it works here. The medical care is excellent and the cost of the insurance is about 1/4 of what we were paying in the states. If I work for the University, I will get the insurance for free and then we only have to buy it for Ken. So that is the experience for now,...After the gorgeous weather last weekend, this weekend was cloudy and colder,..but the dafodils and forsythias (the Czechs call them golden rain!) are out and the cold will soon be gone!