Today Alaska still rides high on oil money. But even oil cannot solve all the social, economic, and environmental problems that persist in such a remote but resource rich area. The inhabitants maintain their position at the bottom of the socioeconomic and health scales and are finding the subsistence lifestyle, which many prefer, increasingly hard to practise. To work as an elective student in the United States, it is important to understand how health care is funded there. The major difference between the US and the United Kingdom is that health care in America is rarely free in the way that it is in Britain.
Someone has to pay for each consultation, electrocardiogram, tablet.
The average citizen is covered through one of many health insurance companies to whom they pay regular premiums, which vary according to risk status. Neither are entirely comprehensive and the services included in each programme vary from state to state. Indian Health Services is a national, federally funded body which, in turn, funds regional native healthcare providers. In Alaska these organise everything from visiting nurse practitioners in isolated villages of less than 100 inhabitants to large general hospitals around the state. Military veterans are covered under a similar programme financed by the Veterans' Administration.