Is their legal system really better?

The legal system and healthcare system are also drastically different here, but I have yet to decide if it’s for better or worse. My teacher told us a few stories that left me speechless:

1. My teacher has the national healthcare plan, which pays for care under physicians who belong to this national healthcare system. One of these doctors referred her to a private practitioner, and the insurance company told her they’d cover what they would normally pay a doctor on their plan, and she’d have to cover the rest. After her visit to the doctor, for about 50 minutes of talking/consultation and drawing blood for tests, she was billed 70 euros. Way cheaper than the States, right? The insurance company, true to their word of covering as much as they pay the other doctors, reimbursed her 6 euros.

Costs seem to be lower because they don’t have the same problems with malpractice insurance here as they do at home, as proven by the next story:

2. A few years ago she ended up in the hospital with awful stomach pains, and she suspected it was her appendix. The doctor told her no and sent her to the gynecology department instead. Meanwhile, waiting to see the next doctor, her appendix burst – and it took another seven hours to get her into surgery. Enraged, and rightly so, she decided to sue the hospital. When her lawyer went in search of her medical records, it turned out that the records were lost and nothing was on file anymore. End of story.

Afterward she told this story to an American friend whose brother coincidentally had the same incident happen in the States. He sued – and was awarded 4 million dollars.

But what happens when you actually have the paperwork, and do get the opportunity to take something to court?

3. Returning from a trip, my teacher boarded a train on her way home. The station was dark and the train, for some reason, had the internal lights off and was pitch black inside. She was carrying one suitcase in each hand and tripped over the bike rack on the floor of the train, fell forward, and hit her head – bad. She had a concussion, slipped vertebrae, and severe bruising, and missed 5 weeks of work for recovery. This time, her lawyer said, they’d be able to make a great case. They took it to court and won, and she got a large sum of……..3,000 euros. According to the lawyer she was extremely lucky, because another judge could have said “what’s wrong with you, couldn’t you see that there was a bike rack on the floor?”