You know you’re an American abroad when a public amenity amazes you. Just ask U.S. women’s rugby player Ariana Ramsey, who, after becoming a bronze medalist alongside her team, has been documenting her time receiving not just free food and chocolate muffins but free healthcare in the Paris Olympic Village.
Since arriving in the village, Ramsey has received a free-of-charge pap smear, dental work, and an eye exam. The experience has been so impactful that she declared she’s joining the fight for universal healthcare in her home country.
“The fact that I’m so excited to be getting free dental is crazy,” she said in a video with a caption declaring her a free healthcare advocate. “This is going to be my new fight for action. Free healthcare in America. Period.”
While at the eye doctor, the Bridgeport, Pennsylvania, native was shocked and impressed by the selection of free eyewear offered.
“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 in a later video. Some of her international followers in the comments couldn’t believe her shock, either.
She added, “That’s what a lot of people are saying in the comments, but like it is what it is; we don’t have free healthcare in America.”
Many in the comments were amused, even making jokes about how, in America, you have to be an Olympian in order to receive free healthcare.
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While free healthcare has been a standard at the Olympics since 1932, affordable and free healthcare is anything but standard in the U.S. It often surprises those outside of the country to learn the U.S. still works under a privatized insurance system that forces many to pay for health insurance through an employer. Government options remain expensive with out-of-pocket costs and lackluster treatment for many, not to mention the recent shuffling of members to longheld programs like Medicaid. Being a Black woman, Ramsey also has to consider how Black people have historically and continually been systemically disenfranchised from quality healthcare in this country.
While in Paris, Ramsey has become something of an overnight Olympic internet celebrity. She has been keeping her followers updated on all of her goings-on, including meeting Snoop Dogg early on, food reviews, other sporting events she’s checking out, and behind-the-scenes details.
In another video posted this week, she exclaims about having been recognized from her TikTok outside of the Olympic Village.
“Lol I’m the healthcare girl, it’s official,” she wrote in the caption of the video.
