Maja Siwik

Mrs. Prendergast
WOC
May 10, 2022

Unexpected situations

On average, including insurance, people pay more than $1,000 per hospital stay in

America. For a country that is so known for its freedom and “amazingness,” this doesn't seem

very reasonable, especially since there is a wide range of income throughout the country.

Unexpected situations happen, and not everyone is always ready to automatically pay for them.

This is why I believe in universal healthcare.

In the summer of 2019, my family went on a vacation to Poland to visit some family. 12

days into the vacation, my whole family was staying at my dad's childhood home. My sister

coincidentally wanted to go to the playground right across the street from the house that day. She

was running across the street when out of nowhere, a car was going a little too fast for a

neighborhood speed limit. It hit my sister; it all happened so fast, and the next thing I knew was

that I was in the car on the way to the hospital. I was so worried for my sister that I didn’t even

let my dad go to the hospital with my uncle and mom because I wanted to go, and there was only

one seat left in the car. The doctors asked if we had Polish papers, but we didn't since we were

just visiting. To my surprise, they still took us in. My sister was taken in for an X-ray, and to

everyone's shock, no bone in her body was broken. The most damage was taken to her left foot,

but it wasn’t broken. I asked my mom if this would all be expensive because as a 12 year old, I

didn't know that other countries had funded universal healthcare. I thought paying for hospital

visits was normal.

 It was not until years later that I realized how different this situation would have been if it

had happened in America. At that point in time, everyone, including me, was focused on my

sister's health and adjusting to her recovery. I had not considered how costly this would have

been if the situation had occurred in America, but thankfully we were in a country that has free

and universal healthcare. This makes me realize that scary and risky situations happen to people

a lot more than you may think. They are very unpredictable, and people are not always prepared

to pay for such medical costs in general, or in my case, on a vacation in a different country.

Now that I'm in high school, topics like costs of healthcare make more sense to me. The

situation that happened throughout our vacation was quite an experience to say the least. It has

taught me that unexpected situations do occur, and sometimes you really have to rely on luck,

time, and place because sadly not everywhere in the world has universal healthcare. Universal

healthcare could help so many people, no matter their income or situation. And most

importantly, they wouldn't have to pay over $1000 per hospital stay. That's what I want, I want

people to be happy, healthy and not buried in medical debt. That's why I believe in universal

healthcare.

Thank you.