“There have been so many donations, from so many areas. From donation boxes set in businesses in Itaewon, people transferring donations through Matt’s bank account, and Matt’s Paypal,” said Lydia Cooper, an English teacher in Bundang and another friend of Matt.
“Some of them don’t know him, some of them never met him, and never even heard of him until now and they are using what they can and what they know to raise money for him.”
One individual donated $500. Most give 10,000 won. But as Lydia puts it, “everything helps.”
“I wasn’t expected this tremendous support,” she said. “I just can’t believe it. It’s absolutely amazing.”
Matt said he has been touched by the generosity of strangers. The phone calls he’s received from donors, he said, “renewed my faith in humanity.”
I'm glad his friends and supporters took the article in this direction. Some users on the Facebook group were being, quite frankly, assholes in trying to make his situation Korea's fault. A few excerpts from users on this thread on "The Media":
I don't know if someone else has already brought this up yet but why not get the North American media involved? They would love to get their hands on a story like this. Not too mention how it affects a large amount of people from the continent who come over here trying to help out the country and then have Korea turn around and try to screw over one of our own like this. I could see Amderson Cooper or Keith Olberman or even Bill O'Reilly yelling into the camera for 2 hours about how this is wrong in everyway, shape and form.
. . .
I was thinking about something similar. I could ask to do a report about it on our radio show. its called tbs efm and is a english radio station here in Seoul.
I also wrote my proposal to Sara yesterday. I hope she/Matt and my station agree. I think it could be worth to get some attention of the foreign community in Seoul, too.
The radio station is pretty new but a lot of foreign people are listening to it.
I am really touched by all this and could not believe such things could happen in our time. This is not humanly to me. Hope in the end it all turns out well for Matt.
. . .
This has gone too far already. Please take some photos of the supposed food they are giving him as well.
. . .
Ryan,Vanita & others this needs to go world wide. It not only how foreigners are treated @ hospitals in Sth Korea. There are other issues concerning foreigners in Sth Korea.
I expressed my objections about that angle twice on that thread, and surely if that was the group's official position from the start---it wasn't and it's not---I would not have encouraged people to pitch in. However, I didn't the tone of this sentence from the original Facebook posting:
Since he's on tourist visa, he can't get insurance. The Korean Bureaucracy has cleverly devised a system so that tourists can't have insurance here.
8 comments:
It's been quite a lot of support coming from the expat community - and yes, I said 'community' - bravo, community. Here's hoping that we can pull together in time of need for others in the future that slip through the cracks.
"Since he's on tourist visa, he can't get insurance. The Korean Bureaucracy has cleverly devised a system so that tourists can't have insurance here."
lol
Most countries don't give tourists insurance. If he was on a tourist visa, he should have purchased traveler's insurance.
Oh, clever Korea. Shame on you for not allowing tourists to buy national health insurance.
You can't blame Korea for this one.
While I very much support and applaud the way that people have come together to help this unfortunate chap out, there is a danger that some involved in the orchestration of the fund-raising are getting carried away in a manner that might leave the movement wanting a little in dignity. Perhaps rather than trying to turn Matt's misfortune into a media event, those central to the campaign might instead consider how more practical steps could be taken to ensure that what has happened to Matt doesn't happen to others.
I, for one, could use some info on travelers insurance. For example, is there one (or more) providers who specialize in insuring English speakers traveling in East Asia? And what about when we go home for short visits (say, America)? The thought of being ill or injured without health insurance in the U.S. is a scary prospect. Until Obama and the Dems fix this mess and bring the U.S. into the 20th century with some form of national health insurance, does anyone have experience with or know anything about insuring against such risks?
Whenever I travel, I just get the traveler's insurance at the airport. It's all in Korean and I'm sure that there are better deals, but I'm just lazy.
Speaking from experience, it's very very hard not to get snippy when making comments that are so close to your own heart.
It is entirely possible that the writer of the infamous "The Korean Bureaucracy has cleverly devised a system so that tourists can't have insurance here" qoute is referring to there being no 'cobra' system. Cobra is a health system in place in the USA that allows an employee to maintain their health insurance between jobs by continuing to pay the premiums even though they are no longer directly employed by the company/office that had originally set up the insurance.
As noted before, Matt was inbetween jobs and was not an 'esl cowboy'. It would not be unreasonable to assume, he choose to have the initial procedure between jobs since it would require some recovery time and well.. we all know the policy on sick days....
had the inital procedure gone well, none of the following health horrors would have occured. I'm not a doctor, and I could totally have this wrong. Yet, that's how I interpreted the infamous qoute, as a reference to there being no bridging mechanism for health care coverage between jobs.
As for efforts to "The Korean Bureaucracy has cleverly devised a system so that tourists can't have insurance here" that's exactly what I've been working on.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/topic.php?uid=97480413827&topic=9591
correction:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/topic.php?uid=97480413827&topic=9591
is in an effort to do this:
"pull together in time of need for others in the future that slip through the cracks."
WeikuBoy: In the US, there is national health insurance and it is called Medicare/Medicaid and it is a mess.
Having lived in countries with so-called national health care like Slovakia, Hungary, Germany, and Finland, I can tell you that it is not all that it is cracked up to be. In Slovakia, if I didn't have a friend who was a doctor I would have had to stand in long lines for when I had bronchitis.
In Germany, as a foreigner I had to buy private insurance. In Germany if you are a foreigner or a German who makes over 3000 euro you had to buy private insurance. I had to pay 100 euros a month for health insurance, which wasn't so bad. Germans who HAD to sign up for national health insurance got reamed. My German friend who was in the national scheme needed a nose operation to help him breathe easier. He had a difficult time sleeping. It was terrible for him. He had to wait about 6 months for the operation. He told me that he envied me because I had private insurance; I could go right away to be treated if I had his condition, just because I had private insurance.
In Finland, my second right lower molar broke, but there was little pain. I called the government-operated dentist in Helsinki. They told me that I had to wait for about month and a half for an appointment. I had to lie and say that it was an emergency. (A Finnish friend told me that I had to do that to get an earlier appointment.) For 35 euro, the dentist put a temporary filling in and referred me to a private dentist, but it would cost about 35 euros. I needed root canal therapy. The Finnish government would reimburse him for the rest. (What the hell? They took money out of my pay for health insurance and I had to go to a private dentist?) I called the private dentist and they had no time available for a month. I had no time for that. I came here to Korea and got the root canal therapy for less than $50 and I didn't have to wait. (The Korean dentist even invited me to join his family for dinner recently.)
So national healthcare for the US would not be a panacea. There is no such thing as "free". And most mooching Americans think just that: free. You will pay for it one way or another: with higher taxes and poorer service (rationing, long waits, more medical tourism to places like South Korea, Argentina, or The Philippines). The Obama plan will only be a larger form of your inept Medicare system.
Post a Comment