American woman's viral Twitter thread exposes the 'nightmare' of European-style socialized medicine

After I explain what a referral is, he looks baffled.

PM: Just go to the cancer center.
Me: But…referral?

He shrugs and hands me the phone number to the cancer center. I call and explain.

CC: A lump, ah yes. You should come in.
Me: Don't I need a referral?
CC: A what?

— Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette) June 3, 2019

So I go. The nurse checking me in apologizes because, since I'm not Icelandic, I'll have to pay for the visit.

It's 3 krónur.

That's 3 dollars at that point.

I pay and sit down to wait.

CC: Kowal?
Me: Already?
CC: You found a lump.

— Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette) June 3, 2019

I've been in the building for about twenty minutes at this point when I'm strapped into the mammogram — WHICH HAD WARMERS — and she does her thing.

CC: There is something there, you are right. I want to see it with an ultrasound.

And then she leads me next door.

— Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette) June 3, 2019

Forty-five minutes after walking into the Icelandic Cancer Center and 3 krónur poorer, I had the answer.

In the US, a similar lump took two weeks and three different office visits.

I think about this every time I have to fight with medical insurance in the US.

— Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette) June 3, 2019

PPPS I said 3 kronur, but it was actually 300 kronur. I got so used to throwing an imaginary decimal place in there to do conversions in my head that I botched it in the thread.

The bit about being it basically three bucks though, that was the point.

— Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette) June 4, 2019