US Medalist's Experience of Free Healthcare in Olympic Village Bolsters Case for Medicare for All

U.S. Olympic rugby player Ariana Ramsey became a sensation on social media this week after documenting a series of free healthcare visits in the Olympic Village in Paris and becoming an advocate for universal care in her home country.

Ramsey's initial TikTok video, published Saturday, went viral in France after she expressed disbelief about the free healthcare on offer, playing into the European idea that Americans—who live in the only high-income country in the world without universal care—don't know what they are missing.

"I literally just got a pap smear—for free," Ramsey, who won a bronze medal last week, said. "And I have a dentist appointment, and an eye exam next week. Like, what!?"

The Olympic Village polyclinic offers cardiology, orthopedics, physiotherapy, psychology, podiatry and sports medicine—all free of charge to athletes, according to Sports Illustrated. The tradition of free healthcare for athletes dates back nearly a century.

Ramsey, a 24-year-old from Pennsylvania who played rugby at Dartmouth College, said in a video that "there's no reason why me, an American girl, should be so amazed by free healthcare."

In a separate post on Monday, recording while sitting in a dentist's chair, Ramsey said, "This is going to be my new fight for action, free healthcare in America. Period."

She now describes herself as a "universal free healthcare advocate" in her TikTok bio.

Medicare for All advocates argued that everyone in the U.S. should have the same access to healthcare that athletes have at the Olympics.

"In the Olympic Village in Paris, everyone has free healthcare as a human right," Warren Gunnels, a top aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and a staff director for the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, wrote on social media. "In America, 1 in 4 cancer patients go bankrupt or lose their homes because of the outrageously high cost of care and 68,000 die a year because they can't afford healthcare. Yes. We need Medicare for All."

Many Olympians have other jobs to pay the bills. Ramsey, for example, is a certified personal trainer. The U.S. is one of the only countries that doesn't directly fund its Olympic athletes, according to Voice of America.

"U.S. Olympians are using their trip to the Olympics to get the basic preventative healthcare they can't afford to get in the U.S.," Melanie D'Arrigo, the executive director of Campaign for New York Health, wrote on social media. "We should be embarrassed that we're the only industrialized country without universal healthcare—all because lobbyists pay off our politicians."

If Ramsey's newfound role as a political campaigner comes as a surprise, it's not the first for her in Paris: the U.S. women's team had never before medaled in rugby, and the last U.S. men's medal was 100 years ago.

The result came in stunning fashion. Down to Australia in the final seconds of the bronze medal match, Ramsey got the ball and threw it to teammate Alex Sedrick, who made a miraculous run the length of the field to tie the game just as time expired, and then converted a kick to win the game.

For Ramsey, the bronze medal likely means she'll receive a bonus of $15,000 from the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee. She's also tried to maximize the medical benefits of being an Olympian in Paris, visiting a gynecologist, dentist, and ophthalmologist.

Back home, medical services won't be as accessible, at least not for many Americans. There were more than 25 million non-elderly uninsured people in the U.S. as of 2022, according to KFF, a health policy research nonprofit. Even a routine pap smear can cost $125 to $250 for an uninsured person. U.S. spending on health care exceeds any other high-income country and yet its health outcomes are consistently the worst among peer nations.