Influenza

I have the flu. I went to the doctor today and that’s what he told me.

Going to the doctor in Taiwan is much different than going in the States.

A) It’s much cheaper. Because of Taiwan’s subsidized healthcare program, doctor’s and hospital visits are a fraction of what it costs in the States. My whole visit (injection, and take-home medication included) came out to about the equivalent of $15 USD. If I had the Taiwanese Governmental Health Insurance it would have been about $3 USD.
B) It’s a lot quicker. I showed up with out an appointment and was in and out in about 20 minutes.
C) The tools and methods. The office looked very similar to those back home, but he had some way weird tools; most of them looked like the tools you see in movies where they’re interrogating someone and the torture guy comes in and slowly unrolls his kit out on the table. The methods were also way different; the doctor stood at a distance from me and looked at me as though he was a sculptor and I was a block of clay that he was in the process of shaping. He only came in close if he had a reason to (i.e. to stick over-sized, medicated q-tips up my nose or to check my temperature). He didn’t ask a ton of questions, mainly because he didn’t speak a ton of English, but after silently looking me over for a bit he said: “OK, you have flu; you want injection?” He then told Helene that I had a pretty high fever and that he was going to give me kind of a medical cocktail that would bring it down and alleviate the aching.
That was about 6 hrs ago and although I’m not 100%, I feel much better.
I’ve become a pretty big fan of this subsidized healthcare, I think it’s something our government should really take a closer look at.