Hoping there ’s still a chance for me to become an elect jock so I can get a gratis eye examination in four year .
I thought the best thing about staying in the Olympic Village was getting the covetedchocolate muffins, but I was completely blown away when I found out that Olympians can also get free healthcare at the polyclinic while they’re in Paris.
In anow-viral TikTok, American bronze medal-winning rugby player Ariana “Ari” Ramsey shared her excitement over the feature. “I literally just got a pap smear for free, and I have a dentist appointment and an eye exam next week. Like, what?!” Ramsey said.
She rode a bike to her freedental exam, arriving at the appointment just in time.
Andafter her eye exam, she got to choose a pair of free glasses, which she picked up just 30 minutes later!
Even though shehas 20/20 vision, Ari said the doctors prescribed her a pair of glasses because her vision gets blurry sometimes.
“The fact that I’m actually so excited to be getting free dental is crazy. This is gonna be my new fight for action. Free healthcare in America. Period,” Ramsey said in avideoshe posted after her dental appointment was complete.
“America needs to do better with their healthcare system. There’s no reason why me, an American girl, should be so amazed by free healthcare.” But “we don’t have free healthcare in America, so yeah, I’m amazed by free healthcare,” Ramsey said in anothervideo.
European commenters on TikTok described this kind of treatment as the norm.
According toUSA Today, the average American spends $117 per month on employer-covered healthcare and $477 per month on the marketplace.
These price do n’t take into explanation copays or deductible , mean that the services Ari received in Paris would probably have had an extra out - of - pocket cost . Also , healthcare in the US does not include imaginativeness or dental coverage , so those would be spare , too .
For example, Pap smears are largely considered preventative and are often covered by insurance, but can still cost close to $150 for the uninsured. A dental exam with X-rays ranges anywhere from $100–$350. For an eye exam and glasses,VSPsays the uninsured cost is usually around $800, which is lowered to $319 with yearly insurance. Getting just those three services alone, Ari saved between $500 and $1,300.
Knowing all this, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the healthcare offerings in Paris sparked commentary about America’s system. Here’s what people are saying:
For the US to be the country that institutionalize the most jock , has won the most palm at the Olympics , and benefits from over 70 billion dollars in taxation from sports alone , it ’s sad that our athlete have to do routine hinderance ups oversees do its unaffordable here .
in both proficient news program ( reverberate on the ioc ) and big news ( the abysmal nation of american health indemnity ) us olympians are now literally cramming a year ’s worth of healthcare into 2 workweek in the Olympian village since ours is so blooming expensivepic.twitter.com/QyGVoCZX52
Our country leads all the decoration count , heaps of jock train in our country , and yet our athlete postulate to get at healthcare during the Olympics because they ca n’t at abode . I so glad the Olympics offers these thing but it ’s also so disappointing .
To be fair it ’s great when external events can provide healthcare to player who are citizen of underprivileged countries
Might qualify for the Olympics just to see the dental practitioner tbh
I don’t know about y’all, but I’m starting to feel like spending the rest of my life training for and becoming highly skilled in a sport might just be the way to some solid healthcare. That is, if I don’t injure myself getting out of this desk chair.
