Fight or embrace... The US health system

I've been meaning to write this post for ages. I've already blogged about the gun culture, one of two of my pet hates about this country. Now for my second, the health system.

People moan about the NHS. It's not free, we pay our taxes, but if you can't afford it you still get access. One of my friends here is a nurse and I was struck by one of our first conversations where we discussed the NHS. Using the example of a broken ankle, she was amazed that you could just walk in and get it looked at. She said here, people can go bankrupt for an injury like that.

Then I read this article which came up on one of my parenting pages... http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/03/why-are-american-women-dying-childbirth-201438161633539780.html

This quote in particular shocked me... 'A 2013 report by the New York Women's Foundation found that black women in New York City had a maternal mortality rate of 79 deaths per 100,000 live births - compared with 10 per 100,000 live births for white women. That means black women in New York have worse maternal mortality rates than women in either Syria or Iraq.'

What is going wrong in a developed country where this can happen. One of my friends here is pregnant, at the other end of the spectrum is she's just been able to find out the sex of her baby through the blood test they do at 12 weeks for Downs by looking at the genetic markers, which I find incredible having never even heard of this in the UK. Even more incredible is stories I've heard about one hospital serving lobster and champagne dinners post giving birth (Darenth Valley gave me cold, dry toast) and another in the city where each new baby got Ralph Lauren baby grows and the Mums a Chanel bag with face creams and make up!

We are fortunate. We have a good insurance policy as part of our package. I've had a couple of interactions with doctors, largely through Ethan and his health checks and it's very impressive if you can afford it. There is a view among the expat population that if you can afford it, you're better off being in the US for healthcare, if you can't the UK is better. Ultimately though, I'm uncomfortable with this aspect of the US, yes we are benefiting from it but I hate that so many Americans do not have access to free healthcare.

So what about Obamacare? A term I hear banded around a lot. It's goal is to give American's access to affordable, quality health insurance and also to provide more regulation. Sounds promising but it's roll out is getting a lot of negative press. I suspect it will not be a quick fix and any changes to the system will take years to come through.

So in case you didn't catch on, the healthcare system is not an aspect of the US that I will be embracing!!

Quiet on the blog front

Apologies, I've been a little quiet on here recently. We've just said goodbye to our third set of visitors for 2014. In the past six weeks we've had Will and Charlotte, Susie and Matt and Lucy to stay. Totalling 27 nights between them its been a lot of fun but also busy and I've not had much time to blog. Actually that's not quite true. It's probably the binge watching of 5 series of Greys Anatomy during the same time frame that's distracted me (badly).

Ethan has loved spending so much time with his aunts and uncles. It's been so rewarding watching him build deeper relationships with them and also just watching his cheekiness and enjoying the attention. We also got a couple of nights out which was nice as we had babysitters on hand.

Anyway, back to the blog. Now to write a post I've been meaning to write for months!

The Maple Leaf Ball

On Friday evening Matt and I were invited to The Maple Leaf Ball, the annual event of the Canadian Association of New York. As the stars had aligned and Matt and Lucy were staying, we decided to attend. Not least because it was at The Mandarin Oriental overlooking Central Park.

It turned out to be a fun evening, albeit very random. The main purpose was to fundraise but also handed out two awards. Pat Kiernan, a NY anchorman was master of ceremonies. Awards were presented to Kenneth D. Taylor, famous for his role as Canadian Ambassador in Iran as portrayed in the film Argo, and Douglas Copeland author of the novel Generation X and now an artist. Both were excellent and entertaining speakers. Tyley Ross, a Grammy nominated recording artist, provided the entertainment.

As well as being educational, it was also a great excuse to get the glad rags on!

Chocolate free lent

(Note this post makes more sense date wise if you know I thought it had uploaded a week ago!)

Yesterday I was very excited to discover these in CVS pharmacy...

I enjoyed them very much and was pleased I had found one of my Easter favorites (even of they're made on licence by Hershey).

Then I decided to give up chocolate for lent. This required eating the remainder of the dairy milk stock Susie had brought me. I figure if there is no decent chocolate in the house then it'll be doable. Hmmmm.

Bring on April 20!

(Oh and mum has also decided to give up chocolate too! Well done mum you an do it!)

Spring is here (almost)

Yesterday was a good day. After months of sub zero temperatures and indoor play dates the temperature not only got into double digits but was 15degrees! The snow is almost melted and seeing the grass again is great.

Bruno had lots of garden time, just chilling in flower beds and refusing to come in. And we rearranged our indoor play date to a park play date. This was Ethan's first time at a park since conquering walking and he loved it!

Here's some of Ethan having fun at the park.

And here's one of Ethan enjoying his first ride in the grocery cart with the car. We don't go to this supermarket very often as I don't like it but Ethan certainly enjoyed driving the food around!

Girls night, Boys night

On Friday evening Susie and I had tickets to see Kinky Boots on Broadway. Ethan was handed to Matt at Mamaroneck station as he got home early and Susie and I went to the city.

We had tasty burgers in Five Napkin burger and then went to see the show. Which was brilliant, very camp and a lot of fun.

Matt and Ethan were feeling a little jealous. They decided to try a new Italian, Polpettina in Larchmont where they had pizza and ice cream. Here are the photos they text me throughout the evening.

Ethan had a late night at 8pm. I had a late one at 12.15pm. Which meant less than six hours sleep by the time Ethan started his day. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

American Museum of Natural History

On Wednesday Susie and I took Ethan to the American Museum of Natural History which sits on the west side of Central Park. Getting there was a bit or an adventure as having both told Matt at the weekend the subway was easy to navigate we ended up on an express train to a stop 40 blocks of our intended stop. On the plus side Ethan used the extra long subway ride to nap.

 

When we got there we purchased a ticket for the butterfly exhibition as well as the standard entry. This runs until the end of May and you can go into a conservatory while hundreds of butterflies  fly round you (http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/the-butterfly-conservatory)

Ethan was really interested in the butterflies until they came too close. In fact the one that flew into his face caused a mini breakdown. It was pretty amazing to see so many butterflies up close, Susie said the entrance fee for the entire museum was worth it just for this one exhibition.

After this exhibition we wandered around some of the exhibits we thought Ethan would like, namely birds, fish and large mammals (and some dinosaurs!). Overall it proved a really fun place to take Ethan, lots of excitement from him at the different animals.

We finished the day with a trip to Times Square. Ethan popped into see Daddy's office and then we took him on the Ferris wheel in Toys R Us.

  And finally one of Susie pretending to be a shark.