US vs. Pamplona health system

I didn´t get to post my thoughts from yeterday since I was pretty spent from celebrating my bday with some fellow pilgrams. Everyone has been quite wonderful here.

I am now in Puenta La Reina...beautiful city...my eyes are being pretty spoiled here with awesome scenery.

I want to go over something I went through yesterday. We have 4 of us that have been sticking together during this walk. Sung Yong is a pilgram from Korea. During his walk from Roncevalles, he hurt his knee pretty bad and comtemplated continuing the walk. Oliver (German) and I decided we needed to go with him to the hospital in Pamplona. We didn´t want him to stress his knee any further fearing ligament damage. We took a cab to Pamplona hospital yesterday morning. We were greeted by the nurses at the reception desk at the emergency room. Since he only spoke korean and Oliver spoke Spanish, we decided to translate for him. The nurse would speak to Oliver in Spanish, he would turn to me and translate to English, I then turned to Sung Yong and translated to him in Korean...it was a 3 way translation but somehow we got through it. Sung Yong took an x-ray then a doctor consulted him. He did not have a clear ligament damage but he needed to rest his legs for couple days. Then came the scary part...Billing! We were advised to go check out with the nurse who admitted Sung Yong. We got his prescription and waited for the bill...

waited...waited...

The nurse looked at us funny, then told us we can go...I asked her to provide us with a reciept so we can pay and head our way...she looked at us funny again...I was confused at her gesture...

´Dinero??´ I asked...

This is the crazy part...emergency room, x-ray, and doctor consultant...it costed Sung Yong all of zero dollars! In case you missed it let me put it in plain english text...

HE DIDN´T PAY A DAMNNNNN THING!!!

I am angry...The United States of America...Leading nation and an example in the world...a free nation of patriotism and democracy...and we don´t have a health care more like Pamplona, Spain???? Really????

C´mon Obama...we can change this...I believe...YES WE CAN!!