An American athlete at the 2024 Olympics has spent her time in Paris making numerous doctor appointments because the healthcare is free in the Olympic village.
In a series of TikTok videos, Ari Ramsey, a rugby player for the US, whose team won the bronze medal, has narrated her experience with free healthcare and has criticized the US expensive healthcare system.
“Ok y’all, not only in the Village do we have free food, but we have free dental, free healthcare. I literally just got a Pap smear for free, and I have a dentist appointment, and an eye exam next week,” Ramsey said in a video. “Like, what?”
She joked that she is just at the Olympics for healthcare. In her time in Paris, she has gotten a Pap smear, a dentist appointment, an eye test, and she even got a free pair of glasses. According to Sports Illustrated, the Olympic Village offers athletes free cardiology, orthopedics, physiotherapy, psychology, podiatry, and sports medicine.
She said that, after her time in Paris, she is becoming a free healthcare advocate.
“The fact that I’m so excited to be getting free dental is crazy,” she said. “This is going to be my new fight for action. Free healthcare in America. Period.”
The U.S. has the world’s costliest healthcare thanks to a different arrangement of factors, such as administrative costs or even greed, according to David Cutler, a faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Cutler says that the U.S. allows pharmaceutical companies to set prices without strict regulation, leading to exorbitant costs for medications like insulin. Additionally, prestigious hospitals charge much higher fees for the same services offered at less renowned institutions.
“America needs to do better with their healthcare systems. There’s no reason why me, an American girl, should be so amazed by free healthcare,” Ramsay said. “And that’s what a lot of people are saying in the comments but like it is what it is, we don’t have free healthcare in America.”
