The US healthcare system is extremely patient friendly, but Donald Trump hardly noticed the problem when he flew to the hospital by helicopter.
It became known last Friday that the head of the White House had been infected. Trump was being treated at a military hospital. The doctors used experimental treatments to put the President on his feet. Meanwhile, the liberal media were already assessing the prospect of the head of state’s death in the midst of an election race. The treatment took only one weekend, but it could have cost millions, writes The Guardian.
“We have the best medical equipment and the best medicines”, – Trump said after the treatment, forgetting that the pandemic took the lives of 213,000 of his fellow citizens.
The fact is that the president did not have to deal with many problems for ordinary people who, once in hospital, do not think about their health, but about the cost of treatment. Trump obviously got the best that the health care system in the United States had to offer.
Healthcare services in the United States are the most expensive in the world, stresses The Guardian. With this in mind, flying Trump’s helicopter to and from a military hospital, diagnostic examinations, experimental drugs, a separate ward, 24-hour care and additional personal protective equipment needed for walks can cost hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars.
Most Americans receive medical care through private insurance. Trump has a unique government insurance policy, which means free treatment at the well-equipped White House medical centre.
New York City University Professor Bruce Lee, who specialises in health policy, found out how much it would cost to treat Trump if he were just an American. Given his age and weight problems, the cost of treatment could have been as high as $93,500.
Only the minimum necessary expenses were taken into account in the calculations, but Trump received an experimental drug from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. Such therapy is not available to ordinary mortals at all.
The company refused to name the potential price of even an unapproved drug, but a study by the Global Journal on Quality and Safety in Healthcare suggests that using monoclonal antibodies cost Trump almost 387,000 dollars.
The President also received Remdesivir. His retail price for Americans is $3,120 for a five-day course. The cheapest drug that the president received was dexamethasone, which costs around $5.
The cost per helicopter flight is estimated at 39,000 dollars. Trump has flown twice. It should also be remembered that the president did not spend his treatment days in a normal room, but in an excellent suite with first-class meals.
“The care that the president has received can afford very, very few people in the country, if not in the world” , – said Dr Lee. – “You can’t expect to get the same types of treatment, the same type of care or perhaps the same results as the president.”
Almost all Trump’s expenses will be covered by insurance. For the president, it is free, unlike ordinary Americans. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that the average American family spends $8,200 on insurance premiums every year. Another 5,500 dollars is paid by the employer. Despite this, Americans often have to literally beat the money out of insurers for treatment, which is unlikely the head of state will encounter.
“Most Americans don’t have the best treatment, no matter what he [Trump] says, because it’s all about access”? – Lee said. -“Only a very small minority of Americans have access to the help they receive.”