So, I'm in rough shape. I've got a bit of ye olde bronchitis, and the cough is truly horrifying. One of the things, however, that I love about the way Czechs do things is that you must go to the doctor to be eligible for sick time pay, and when you do, the doctor gives you a little slip of paper that tells your employer that you are ill, and must stay home. Once you have that slip of paper, it is actually ILLEGAL for you to go to work again until the doctor has given you permission, and your employer is not permitted to LET you work.
Of course, you have some say so in this; you can go and tell the doctor, "I'll be better tomorrow." If your illness is minor, she'll sign off on it right then, and you can be back on the job the next day. But, if you're like me, and you turn up with a wracking cough and a host of other symptoms with no clear end in sight, and particularly if she has to prescribe an anti-biotic, she simply says, "You need to rest at home. Do not go outside into the cold. Take this medicine, and stay in bed until you have finished it" and then tells you to come back in a week, when she will check you, and consider allowing you to go back to work. There is no limit on sick days; if you are sick, you cannot work, period.
I love this, because as an American who is used to a system of limited allotted sick time, being ill meant not only a significant loss of pay, but it was also fraught with the feeling that my boss was angry, and it was all my fault: I chose to stay home and nurse my illness, and the minute I feel the slightest bit better, I'd better be back. I love to be told by my doctor that, not only am I not allowed to go to work, but that she will be the judge of when I am better, and none of this has a thing to do with what anyone at my job thinks. Brilliant. In my case, for today, she's totally right. Even if I am feeling better in a couple of days, this illness is the result of being generally tired, over-busy and run-down, and I DO need a good long rest to completely beat it. If I don't send it off properly, I'll be fighting a chronic cough and low-level malaise all winter.
I guess none of this would seem particularly "business friendly" and could be seen as an interference with people's free choice about whether or not to kill themselves as cogs in the free market's wheels. It's a policy that certainly impacts the overall productivity of the Czech work force (though I think, on the whole, that working Czechs are as, if not more, self-motivated than cowed, stressed-out, Americans). But, at the same time, it also allows you a little human frailty, time to take care of yourself when you're sick, and contributes to a less stressful life overall.
Oh, and did I mention that the doctor's visit, including all lab work, cost about $2.00 and I paid the equivalent of $6.00 for three prescription medications? Yeah. That too. I pay mandatory medical insurance out of my payroll taxes, and have a basic state policy. It costs me about $35.00 per month, and there is nothing that is not covered by it. My doctor could prescribe SPA TREATMENTS and send me off to Marienbad for a MONTH if she thought I needed it.
All this to say that fear of a single-payer medical system in the US is over-wrought, man. People are freer and less freaked out if they can take care of themselves and count on medical care, no matter what.
