For the 10 years I have lived in the US, I have largely escaped one of the worst things about it: the healthcare system. (“System” in this context is a generous description.) Like many foreign passport holders, I was able to take out an international policy in my home country and avoid not only the unstable price hikes that plague US policyholders, but the shocking awfulness of most American insurance. Having premature twins in Manhattan can cost in the hundreds of thousands – and in my case did – and my UK insurer never passed on a bill.
The only mystifying thing was how it made any money. Well. A few days ago a nervous-sounding agent rang me from Britain and, in what sounded like a script dictated by lawyers, said that he regretted to tell me the company, a huge European conglomerate, was getting out of the US market and my policy would not be renewed in January. There are fixed deadlines for buying annual coverage in the US and I had a week to find new healthcare.
These are the options in the world’s richest country: qualify for Medicaid, the state healthcare provision for which the restrictions on income are tight and the availability of doctors tighter; work for a company that pays your insurance; or apply yourself to the free market and buy insurance from, for example, a provider part-owned by Jared Kushner’s brother that dwindling numbers of New York doctors accept and has a $14,000 (£10,000) excess on a family policy that costs more than $800 a month. (This isn’t an anomaly, it’s the industry standard.)
That company, I note, is currently running an online ad campaign so ill-fitting it might be funny if it wasn’t obscene: “These days, almost everything is a click away. Want to become an ordained minister? Click. Want to meet the love of your life? Click. Want a dozen cupcakes at 3am? Click. Want to find a great doctor your insurance will actually cover?” I don’t know, move to Canada?
Hoffman exposed
“Shame on you!” yelled some guy in the audience at a Tribeca film festival event as John Oliver pursued Dustin Hoffman over allegations of groping. “Move on!” he shouted – not at Hoffman, at Oliver. Then a woman shouted something in defence of groped women and the audience clapped.
The social awkwardness of the moment was somehow communicated even more strongly for being shot over people’s heads on a phone. Oliver was clearly uncomfortable, but ploughed on. Hoffman was livid, indignant, referring to “this woman” in the Clintonian style and dismissing the accusations as an “over-reaction”. It is a rare moment of pulling back the curtain not just on rotten celebrity, but on dim-witted PR events at which everyone on stage is supposed to behave.
The tale of Farmer Christmas
“Father Christmas comes to our apartment on Christmas Eve,” I said at the weekend after we’d put up the tree. “Sorry – not Father Christmas, Santa Claus. Anyway, he brings presents for you and all the little boys and girls.” My children, who are almost three, looked at me sceptically and I felt myself waver. Was I really going to slog through the construction of all this?
“How does he get in?” asked my daughter, who has never been inside a house and understands chimneys to be a delivery system for big bad wolves or Dick Van Dyke.
“The terrace,” I said. She looked alarmed. “But he’s a good guy,” I said.
“When is he coming?” she asked the next day.
“Who?”
“The Christmas Farmer.”
I don’t think I’m doing this right.
• Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist
