A little decoration could go a long way to making it a more pleasurable visit… I’m just sayin’. (note: this is not the ACTUAL office. For privacy reasons, I am using a representative bldg that looks very similar).

One of my favorite things about living in Italy is the public health care system…

ok,ok… I want one of my favorite things about living in Italy to be the public health care system.

I like public health care as a concept. I have always thought that it’s completely absurd that the US offered no basic public health care for free. I am a supporter of paying higher taxes for a system that can deliver basic care to all of its citizens. Intellectually, I am 100% on board. Yay, public health care!!!

Then comes the day when I need to go to the doctor, and my faith falters.

Not immediately… it falters somewhere around the third hour that I’ve been sitting in a small, bare room with 20 other people, waiting for the one doctor that I am required to go see before being referred to any specialist.

By the fifth hour I am cursing the whole system and seriously doubting the intelligence level of the average Italian who thinks that this is an acceptable way to live.

I mean how hard is it to schedule appointments?! Sometimes I’m tempted to just start a sign-up sheet on the door. It’s absurd! You have to take an entire day off work to go SIT in a little room!

I will definitely have more to say about this later, but now I have to go wait in line at the hospital for 4 hours so that the doctors there can tell me come back and do it again in two weeks.

On the plus side, I haven’t spent a cent!

Nations with Universal health care systems.  (Wikipedia)