Everyone's talking about health care

One of the happiest news this year came from the successful heart surgeries my aunt and uncle had. Both of them have been tortured by heart problems since their youth. My aunt wasn't supposed to live to her forties, and my uncle should have had his open heart surgery 20 years ago.

As a kid, I'd spend every summer in Shanghai--and I'd take turns staying at my aunt and uncle's houses. In those days, people didn't have big apartments. One family would be crammed into one bedroom. At my aunt's house, my aunt and her husband took the bed, my older cousin the sofa, and the remaining three--me, my sister, and my cousin slept on the floor. In the mornings, someone would have to drag me out from underneath the sofa. I remember waking up at the middle of many night to see my aunt sitting up, breathing through an oxygen tank. At my uncle's house, which was on the third floor, I could hear my uncle coming up the stairs as the old stairs creak under him. He always stopped at the second floor to catch his breathe.

There were many things I disliked about Communist China, but I was always glad my aunt and uncle were living under that political system. My aunt didn't work a day after she was diagnosed with her congenital heart problem. Just her medical expenses alone would've dragged her family into a financial abyss. In China, she at least received the basic salary till her retirement, not to mention the medical expenses that were fully covered. Similarly, I'm not sure my uncle could have kept his job if he wasn't living in China.

Those days of job security are long past. But apparently, something has remained of health care. I learned that the Shanghai government covered 90% of the expenses for my uncle (which included weeks of hospitalization) and aunt. I was glad, again, that they were living in China, and not in the US.