Very Out Of Network

by Zoë Pollock

Steve Silberman contracted conjunctivitis while traveling in London. After extensive calls to his American insurance company, he visited an NHS doctor, who charged him nothing and prescribed him drugs costing just 10 pounds:

I’m aware that my little adventure in socialized medicine is no more than a trivial anecdote — one tourist’s experience with a minor affliction that was easily dealt with. I expect that many Londoners could furnish horror stories about their ordeals in the NHS. One renowned health-care expert who grew up in England recently explained the difference between British and American medicine to me by saying that if he was very rich and had cancer, he would rather live in the U.S. But if he was poor and had cancer, he’d rather live in the U.K. and be guaranteed at least B-minus care.