US Rugby Player Ari Ramsey Is "Amazed" By Free Healthcare at the 2024 Olympics

Ari Ramsey went to the 2024 Olympics to play Rugby, but she's leaving with a new passion: free healthcare. The athlete has been hanging out in the Olympic Village since her bronze medal-winning match on July 30, and while she's enjoying watching other sports, she's also fitting in a year's worth of medical checkups thanks to the Village's free healthcare. Would it surprise you to know Ramsey plays for Team USA?

Ramsey is documenting her Olympic and healthcare journey on TikTok, and she's been amazed at the free healthcare offered in the Olympic Village — something athletes have had access to during the Games since 1932. It all started six days ago, when Ramsey posted a video on TikTok saying she'd just gotten a Pap smear in Paris.

“Ok y'all, not only in the Village do we have free food, but we have free dental, free healthcare. I literally just got a Pap smear for free, and I have a dentist appointment, and an eye exam next week," Ramsey said. "Like, what?”

In the US healthcare is, of course, not free. The country's privatized insurance system can mean steep co-pays, inaccessible plans for people who aren't employed, and a frustrating web to navigate when a claim arises. These obstacles can be even tougher for marginalized people.

While Ramsey made a video joking that she's just at the 2024 Olympics for the healthcare, she's getting valuable and necessary appointments under her belt, all without cost. She continued to document her dentist appointment and her trip to get a fully free pair of glasses (her video about the glasses went viral, perhaps thanks to the love for Olympian's eyewear). According to Sports Illustrated, the Olympic Village offers athletes free cardiology, orthopedics, physiotherapy, psychology, podiatry, and sports medicine. Paralympians will also have access to free dermatology, per Sports Illustrated.

After her dentist appointment, Ramsey declared herself a free healthcare advocate.

“The fact that I'm so excited to be getting free dental is crazy,” she said. “This is going to be my new fight for action. Free healthcare in America. Period.”

She went on to call out the American system in a separate video.

“America needs to do better with their healthcare systems. There's no reason why me, an American girl, should be so amazed by free healthcare," she said. "And 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.”

U.S. government, are you listening?