¡Salud! Here and there

Journalist Rhonda Kaysen is having an anchor baby…

When I tell my friends in America that I’m having a baby in Mexico City, they often gasp with contained horror. …

I visited a doctor once in the U.S. during my pregnancy. I never saw the doctor, only a nervous resident who forgot to tell me my due date and asked me twice if I was trying to get pregnant, despite having just thrown up in his office bathroom. Meanwhile, back in Mexico, my septuagenarian physician, flanked by a giant wooden crucifix, spoke with me for an hour and gave me his home phone number.

Most agree that the U.S. health care system is broken. What few may realize is that just to our south, in a country where we’re building a wall to keep our neighbors out, they’ve got a much more functional system in place. The right to health care is written into the constitution. And under new legislation, all Mexican babies born since December are guaranteed medical care.

This is not to say that there are not problems here. For those who depend on the public system, care is often inadequate, especially in poor, rural areas. However, for Mexicans with the means to afford private doctors and private hospitals, the options are staggering.

I’m not wealthy by U.S. standards. My husband and I are freelance journalists. But medical costs in Mexico haven’t spiraled out of control like they have in the U.S. — a typical office visit costs around $40 out of pocket here. In the U.S., that was my co-pay, after my $200 monthly premium.

In the U.S., I spend hours waiting in overcrowded waiting rooms for a five-minute checkup. Here doctors give me their home phone number, cell phone, e-mail and pager. My doctor will deliver my baby, regardless of the time of day. Some even make house calls.

I wasn’t seeing an ob/gyn, but I’ve paid as little as 20 PESOS for a private doctor’s visit, at one of the clinicas attached to the chain farmacias. And I don’t think the public health facilities were all that bad, at least in Mexico City… not compared with public facilities in the U.S. Where I live now, we cross into Mexico for affordable health care, even with the higher border-town rates commanded by private doctors and dentists.