H.M......Oh

A lot of my time this past week was spent researching various HMOs to determine which would best suite my needs. Because healthcare in Israel is mandatory (yay for socialism) I don't have to worry about getting any "pre-existing condition" BS. It also means that the basic services provided by each of the HMOs is roughly the same. Basically my decision came down to which HMO seemed better managed, had more open appointment times, and gave out lollipops after shots.

On a related note, one of the laws I encountered during my research dealt with the amount of money a patient is aloud to pay for medications. It turns out that the maximum a patient can pay in any half a year period is approximately $350. That means that I will end up paying a little over a hundred dollars per remicade infusion (and pay nothing for other medications). This is remarkably better than the $2000 that I had been led to believe each infusion would cost. It seems strange to me that during all of the discussions I have had with doctors and health care professionals about trying to obtain remicade at a reasonable price, not one of them informed me about this subtlety of Israeli health care law. I have since come to the conclusion that everyone involved with health care in Israel is stupid. Except for the people who write the laws.