‘Like, what?’: USA’s Ariana Ramsey blown away by free healthcare at Olympics

The US rugby sevens player Ariana Ramsey will leave Paris with more than just a bronze medal. After ­discovering the Olympic Village ­provides not only free food to ­athletes but a suite of free healthcare options, she will be heading home having completed a pap smear and a free eye and dental exam. She even snagged a free pair of prescription glasses. To quote her now-viral ­TikTok video, “Like, what?”

The Olympic Village – where athletes reside during the Games – began offering free medical care in 1932, according to Sports Illustrated. SI also reported the village offers, ­cardiology, orthopedics, ­physiotherapy, ­psychology, and podiatry, with dermatology also being offered to Paralympic athletes, who arrive next week.

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In the US, healthcare is covered by private insurance that often requires customers to pay out-of-pocket until a deductible is reached, as well as co-pays and co-insurance costs, with extra fees incurred if a doctor is out-of-network. These expenses frequently make even basic healthcare such as gynaecology check-ups prohibitively expensive, and Ramsey has spent the last week chronicling her experience with free healthcare on TikTok.

“America needs to do better with their healthcare system because there’s no way why me, an American girl, should be so amazed by free healthcare,” she said.

Ramsey, who was part of history in Paris when her team won the US’s first-ever Olympic rugby sevens medal, is also a certified personal trainer. Her excitement about the free care, and the ease with which it’s distributed has led to heated debate on her social media, with some noting it isn’t “free,” since someone else is ­paying for it, and others calling it “just embarrassing” for the US.

Healthcare in the US is projected to have cost $4.8tn in 2023, according to recently released federal data, outpacing the country’s GDP. Per person this amounts to an estimated $14,423 in 2023 with a projected rise to $15,074 in 2024. In France, the host country of the 2024 Games, that number was estimated to have been $5,740 per capita in 2020.

By the end of the Paralympic Games in September, more than 22,000 athletes will have stayed in the Olympic Village, many of whom will have enjoyed access to the free care on offer. Since making her first TikTok bringing awareness to the Olympic Village polyclinic, Ramsey said she has been thanked by the healthcare workers for her positive message and is being recognised on the street. The experience has inspired a new ­passion in her.

“I’m officially a free ­healthcare advocate,” Ramsey said after ­completing a dental appointment. “This is gonna be my new fight for action: free healthcare in America. Period.”

Ramsey started playing rugby in high school, where she also excelled in track, wrestling and field hockey. She continued to play rugby in college at Dartmouth, where she was a co-captain. She also represented the US at the Tokyo Olympics, where her team reached the quarter-finals.