Being an international student, it only just been two years since I step my foot in the United States. Therefore, honestly, I never encounter any medical event in here. However, I do have experienced back in my home country which Malaysia. From my observation, the healthcare system in my country is different from the US. In Malaysia, the system is operated in two-tier health care system. In this system, it consists of both a government base universal healthcare system and there is also a co-existing private healthcare system.
In my experience, there are differences in between government based and private based. My grandmother used to admit to both different type of hospital which government hospital and private hospital. She has a heart problem where her heart is weak due to old age and also, she has stomach ulcer. The differences in those two types of healthcare is the price that they charged the patient. She once admitted to private hospital when she accidently slips, and the doctor diagnosed that her potassium level low. We spend approximate RM600 per night for her stay in the hospital. This is not included the medicine that given to her. However, when she diagnoses with stomach ulcer, she needs an urgent surgery due to her stomach already burst. For the surgery, we only spend below RM 500 including everything. With the cost, many people in poverty or have low income prefer to go to the government based since it is more affordable.
However, there is also downside of it. The government-based healthcare usually packs with people or patient, making the waiting long. Due to this, my family decided to admit my grandmother to private hospital when she slips. We afraid that we need to wait long for turn and during that time my grandmother do not have a lot of energy. Thus, this is one of the reasons why some people prefer to go to the private sector compare to government sector. With these two types of healthcare system, I think it given people a choice in concern of their healthcare. In term of the quality of the healthcare provider, I believe is the same. Maybe the private sector is more comfortable in term of facilities such as the room hence their high cost.
That is quite interesting, but you are describing health care delivery systems not necessarily medical systems. It is still quite interesting, and we will definately be talking about it later this semester. However, what you are describing with your grandmother sounds like biomedicine since it relies on Western knowledge and technology such as surgeries and certain medications. While another type of system, like traditional Chinese medicine will use things like acupuncture, herbal remedies or hot-and-cold treatments. There might be some subtle differences between biomedicine used in Malaysia compared to the US, but you might have to do some asking around to find out what those are.