The Health Care System in the United States

In our last English lesson, Farrah explained to us the most important facts of the health care in America.

Basically what she said, was that the American haven't got state insurance. Some people are able to afford private insurance but the youth and the poor people cannot meet the expense of this insurance. Private insurance is very expensive, so in some cases people are on the verge of bankruptcy.

Generally there are two systems in America. The first one is the Medicare for the old and sick people and the second is the Medicaid, which is for the poor people.

The aim of PPACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) is that everybody can afford insurance. Until the age of 26 everyone is insured with their parents, if this person is a student and doesn't work.

A further aim of PPACA is that the costs and the risk of bankruptcy should go down.

I wasn't aware of the fact that a law like PPACA exists and that the American health care is divided into two parts.

To sum up I can say, that we, all the Austrian people, can appreciate the health care regulation in Austria.

School System in America

On the  11th of Octoberwe spoke with Farrah about the school system in Amercia and discussed about the differences between the school education in Austria and in America.

I'll tell you something about the school life in the U.S.A. Futhermore I'll give you some infromation about the "grades system".

First of all a child has to go to the kindergarten until the age of five. Afterwards it attends elementary school and at 12 years, the teenagers go to middle school, also called junior high.





From 14 to 18 the teenagers attend the high school.

 Then they can choose if they want to go to university or start working.

If they decide to attend a college, they have to pass the SAT (Schoolastic Apitude Test).

I wasn't aware of the fact that at high school every mark has a different number of points, for example, an A = 4 points, a B = 3 points and a C are 2 points.

Summerazing I can say that many things are the same as in Austria, for example, the schools in Austria as well as the schools in America have core subjects.

Conversation with Farrah

In our last English lesson, we get to know Farrah. She is 22 years old and comes from Maryland, which is on the East Coast of America. Moreover she told us her hobbies, which are reading, meeting her friends and traveling. Farrah will stay in Austria until May - and she also said that she wants to get better in skiing.

We asked her if she had ever visited New York?! Her answer was, that NY is only 4 hours away from Maryland. So she confirmed for us some clichées of the United States, but she enlightened us, for example, that  the U.S.A.  also has its own culture.

Furthermore she speaks French and her favourite forgein language is German, which she has been studying for 3 years. Business Administration and Management are two of her subjects at the University of Maryland.

Now I would like to write something about the first impression of Farrah.
She is very friendly and I have no problems understanding her, she has a very good pronunciation.
Moreover I think she helps us to improve our English skills and she is able to tell us, in which way we can communicate in 'real' life, for example, how we can describe some words we don't know and through that we also get a little impression of the American way of life.