Caja Gotcha Covered.

Yesterday I got some firsthand experience with Costa Rica's world-renowned universal health care system!

As I said before, they were not kidding when they said this program was rigorous-- from 8am-9pm, six days a week, i am either in a class, on a field trip, or eating a meal. The little breaks here and there are mostly spent in bed recovering! Well, Monday was a rest day, and according to the formula, when the body slows down, disease catches up. For me, it was probably just the simple combination of exhaustion and some weird tropical bacteria, but by Monday night I had a headache, a sore throat, a cough, and congestion. I woke up that night with sweats and the chills, scared to death I had dengue fever. Turns out I'm having the tropical disease version of first-year-medical-student-syndrome, i.e., ohmygod I just learned about this I think I'm dying! Actually it's just a really bad throat infection.

Luckily, the next day was our scheduled tour of the hospital and an EBAIS-- a local primary care clinic. The Costa Rican health care system is based in a single entity: the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social or just "Caja". It is health insurance that is guaranteed for every single person. Every employed person pays 9% of their income to support Caja. This is a pretty huge chunk, especially if you are healthy and wealthy and unlikely to use the system much. However, it's such a big part of their culture that although people complain about it, they are proud to be able to have such a system. Also, just because you don't pay into the system, doesn't mean you can't use the services. The clinics will care for immigrants, illegal aliens, even Americans, for free or ridiculously cheap. And the Caja provides integrated care--health promotion, not just disease prevention. So when we visited the EBAIS, I got a 7 day round of Amoxicillin antibiotics-- for free! It may have helped that we were riding around with the health director for this entire region, but I think that's what their system guarantees for everyone. Great, right?

I'd like to explain more about the Caja, because it's a fascinating model, but I am still getting over this bug, so I need some rest. Buenas noches!