Canadian here.

$0 for everything, generally

If you have blood pumping from a stump, or have something catastrophic and are in immediate peril, you are seen quickly and get first class treatment....in most cases... However, our Indigenous population and other vulnerable sectors do not always get treated well sadly, and in some remote places access to health care is limited

Now if it's something "minor", you will wait for an appointment, or in the ER...for a long time, like 6-18 hours. which I have done many times However, you will get seen, and you will get services... The biggest bill I ever had was like $15 for parking

Some examples from my own experience: My mother had multiple, debiliatating illnesses over 20+ years, $0 Dad had a heart attack 15 years ago, $0 I was born , c-section, $0 i had multiple children, $0 Vasectomy (no more children haha) $0 Massive car accident, many injuries, $0 See my doctor annually for checkup, $0

Canadian here:

Some provincial governments are purposely underfunding healthcare in their provinces in order to make it worse. The purpose behind this is to try and push for more private healthcare. They figure if everyone thinks the current healthcare system sucks, it's easier to sell them on private. I'm fucking tired of this shit. The world is just full of greedy selfish assholes.

Australian here.

Just took my wife to the ER twice this weekend. Stressy.

Blood tests, consults, medication, drip, snacks and drinks, the lot.

$0

I'm Norwegian, where you have to pay about $30 to go to the doctor (which is set to $0 after spending $150 in a year).

I'm not sure about a broken arm, but I think it's free.

I live in Denmark now - the only difference is that there is no cost with going to the doctor.

I used to live in the US and now I live in Denmark. I recently fell off my bike and got hurt. I went to the non-ER hospital and had some x-rays, an ultrasound at a specialists office, got a sling, and some nominal amount of ibuprofen/paracetamol/cut cleanup thrown my way. Then had a follow up with a specialist and got a little PT as well.

$0. It's unreal as someone who has experienced injury in the US. I got amazing care in a pretty timely fashion and didn't have to worry about going broke

UK.

There were complications when my wife gave birth. 2 weeks in hospital, some surgery, and nurses and midwives on call 24/7. The biggest cost was me stress buying snacks for my wife (until she told me to stop!). Even parking was reduced to £11/week, since she was in for multiple nights.

Another occasion. I had a benign lump in an annoying place. It took 14 months to get through to get it removed. It's only when I went in I realised it was not a 5 minute snip. Around an hour for a plastic surgeon to properly remove and stitch it up.

The NHS has its problems. Mostly caused by previous governments trying to starve it (to let their mates sell us for profit healthcare). The system and staff are absolutely awesome.

If I'm asked to point out what makes me proud to be British, the NHS is the prize jewel in that particular crown.

Cost wise, we pay national insurance, a fixed percentage of income. ("Payment by ability, treatment by requirement.") Prescriptions are £9.90 each, or £120/year. They also wave the fee for a lot of groups who might have problems with it. It's massively more cost effective than the American system.

In Australia.

I went to the doctor complaining of weird headaches and vertigo, so she sent me for X-ray and MRI. They discovered holes in my bones that proved I have blood cancer (myeloma). Further blood tests proved that I was not long for this world and organs were failing, got pushed to the top of the list and sent to hospital the same day that the blood tests came back. At this point, treatment hadn’t cost me anything.

In hospital for four weeks with IV medications and chemotherapy, sent home with chemotherapy and a whole bunch of other tablets. Spent a year not responding to chemotherapy, told to get my affairs in order. At this point, treatment hadn’t cost me anything.

A specialist recommended a stem cell (“ bone marrow”) transplant, and then because it worked so well, another one six weeks later. In hospital for two weeks each time, with IV medications and chemotherapy. At this point, treatment hadn’t cost me anything.

I then spent 18 months taking chemotherapy tablets daily; these cost the government $28,000 a month; I paid $6.50 a month. Another twelve months on weekly immunoglobulins, which cost me nothing.

Six years after diagnosis, I’m now in remission (although “myeloma always comes back”). I’ve been two years with “no evidence of disease”.

I’m grateful and lucky that I live in Australia and have the public health care system. I would not have been able to pay for any of this in a country with healthcare-for-profit.

UK.
Visit to doctor: free
Ambulance trip to hospital: free
Broken arm: free
Pregnancy care, maternity, birth, etc: free
Cancer treatment, including multiple rounds of Chemotherapy, surgery, post-op care, etc etc: free

Prescription: about £10, but I get an annual fixed price unlimited pass which pays for itself in a month or three all the stuff I'm on.
Parking at the hospital: not free.

Dentist: not free.

Its great in Australia, i farkn love medicare (what we call it). My wife had a recent health scare and we had to run around seeing all these different people (getting scans done, follow up appointments, second opinions etc) and it was amazing walking out each time not needing to pay anything.

We have to pay for meds but its cheap as chips (my meds for my heart shit are like $20 each pick up).

I really feel for you yanks, its insane America of all countries doesnt have it.

UK

I got hit by a driver a couple of years ago. Ambulance to A&E was free. Triage and being seen was free. CT was free. Sling for broken clavicle was free. I had 6 weeks off work due to lingering effects of concussion - getting signed off by the doctor was free.

I usually see the GP once or twice a year for minor things and those visits are always free.

My partner's antidepressants are free. Therapy is free. Birth control is free.

In Scotland all prescriptions are free.

I can't imagine having to consider finances in the event of any health issues.

Canadian here... I had a boss who was American. He would often talk about how the American system was so much better then the Canadian system. This upset me but luckily I could go to the hospital and get my feelings checked for free.

Canadian here: wait times can be long depending on seriousness but it honestly doesn’t register. You need emergency care, you go to the hospital, you get taken care of, you leave. No fees. It’s not perfect efficiency but it works.

EU here, I was pregnant and gave birth both in Germany and in France.

In Germany, the overall cost was 0€. It included monthly follow ups with a gynecologist, many blood exams and echos, the birth, MUCU for baby for three days, hospital stay for both of us for four days, at home visits for ten days, monthly visits with the gp for a while. Health insurance is through your work, so you pay for it via taxes but significantly less than in the US (I think my partner and I were paying just under 200€/month? It’s a percentage of income) I had 3.5 months of maternity leave at full pay, then I could stay home longer with 60% pay for up to a year cumulative with my husband.

In France, the overall cost was a bit higher (_{50€) because not all blood exams are completely free, so over the first 6 months of pregnancy I payed less than 10€/month for some blood tests. Gp and gynecologist visits are free, so are the ecos and the hospital stay. I decided to pay a little extra (50€/day) to have a private room after the birth where my husband could stay overnight. It should still be conferred by my extended health insurance (not mandatory). I was also in sick leave for the white pregnancy, and for the first 3 months I had full salary, then it dropped to 1/3, the got back to 100% when I went in maternity leave (}4.5 months). I decided to stay home a bit longer, without pay. My husband can also choose to stay home without pay, and has one month of paternity leave.

I also lived in the US. Incomparable. On top of not having to pay, when there is a charge it is always stated clearly upfront, while in the US knowing what you’ll have to pay is a wild guessing game. Overall: I moved back to Europe for a reason.

My own experience from Brazil is pretty good overall.

I have free therapist it's been a year. Free appointments with psychiatrist and neurologist. Free transport to specialized doctors in other cities when needed. Once I had to go throught a surgery, kept in the hospital for 2 days, and some weeks of daily visits to change bandages (it was a little complicated). I didn't spent a cent on all this.

My mom also got free appointment to ophthalmologist, not just that but they also paid for her new glasses as well.

You'll see some complains about quality of services and it's true, some people say that appointments may take ages I also hear that often, but as personal experience I never faced it. Maybe because I live in a small town in a small region as well. So queues are short or non-existent.

I had a friend from Argentina and the health system there is pretty similar if not even better.

It's a good country to live in, I don't think I'd like to live somewhere else. Basically any health problem you can rely on universal health system and having this support independently of anything (if you work or not, if you have money or not) feels good.

Loved one recently diagnosed with cancer. Within a week she has a team of 5 medical professionals assigned to her to kill this thing. If she was in the USA, this would bankrupt the family.

Brazil

We have a weird hybrid system. While the universal care is not known for its efficiency, and sometimes sick people will have to wait for hours to see a doctor, I am sure it beats having to mortgage your house because of a broken arm.

Besides universal care, people can decide to pay private hospitals and doctors directly. It's expensive. Few people can afford it (but interestingly, still much, much cheaper than in the US). And then, all of this combined generates affordable and actually good health insurance plans. You get a mix of getting guaranteed care, with a typical insurance monthly fee, which also most companies provide for their employees. Of course there are many tiers of insurance plans, but the most basic and affordable ones are typically very good. It's rare for insurance companies to deny procedures, something that is completely different than in the US. (It happens, though, depending on the procedure).

Either way, you never have to worry about what it'll cost you. No life changing charges, no astronomical bills.

Belgium here.

Doctor is 5€ or so, but your general doctor can't do almost anything but prescribe things or refer you, which is enough for most general sicknesses.

Then you have to go to the hospital for a scan or follow up, usually within the same week, or you can go to the emergency room for something like a break and they will see you immediately (of course, like in the US, you will often have to wait an hour or 3 depending on the time of day). Then for all the tests and everything it is usually <100€, for me I have never had more than 50€ but I haven't had a break where I had to get immediate care.

Specialists take a long time to see otherwise, often months, but from what I hear from friends in the US, the wait time is usually longer there.

My husband was extremely drunk and cycling home at 3am. Fell off his bike, smacked his face on the road and fell unconscious. Was picked up by an ambulance called by a good Samaritan who found him.

They put him on a drip, ran an MRI scan, found a fracture on his eye socket, told him he had a concussion, found some fibroids in his lungs (unrelated to the accident) etc. Was in the emergency ward for probably 12 hours until he was able to be discharged.

Got follow up scans and appointments looking at the lung, eye and concussion issue over two years until they gave him the all clear.

We paid not a cent for the whole thing. He did get a verbal lashing from me though.

On the flip side, I had to have elective surgery to remove a 17cm cyst because it was really, really uncomfortable. Because it's elective, it's not covered by Medicare. The quote from the hospital came to $22K and we had to pull it out of the home loan.

Location: Australia

Forgot to say that we both have ambulance membership which costs us $70/year. Without it, the ambulance cost would've been around $3.5K.

UK here, NHS is constantly being underfunded and gutted by contracting out to private companies, it still works but just barely.

For example, ambulance target response time for a cardiac arrest, not a simple heart attack but full on unconscious not beating not breathing, used to be 8 minutes or less. Now they aim for 20 minutes and only achieve that 60% of the time.

I'd much prefer a Norwegian style model where you pay say £30 per doctors/non-emergency hospital visit up to a cap of £150 per year with those who can't afford that getting those fees paid for by the government.

Some additional things I would add would be a slowly increasing VAT on private healthcare until it reaches double the normal VAT, paying student nurses/doctors a full wage and full living cost loan for the duration of their studies, whilst working they do not pay the interest on those loans, then if they move abroad before the university loans are paid back they have to pay the interest back as well.

This would massively increase funding for the NHS by taxing those who can definitely afford the burden because at double VAT the only ones who'd still opt for private healthcare are those who employ workers and therefore no matter how much they try to wriggle out of paying tax they can't avoid this one.

The second would increase the number of medical students and stop the current drain of young medical professionals leaving for other countries.

In Sweden, on paper, everybody has the right to receive health care, even if you're not a citizen. This is humanitarian and beautiful. On paper. While I wouldn't trade it for what you have in the US, our system has some serious shortcomings. For example, because of the long waiting times, we had to come up we the term "health care guarantee", which is a guideline to health care providers that states, that they have to provide health care within two or three months of the application date. Since it's a guideline it's practically meaningless and some people have had their health irreversibly damaged because they didn't receice surgery or whatever in time. Another example are the people delivering babies abroad. Some clinics and hospitals are so taxed, that they cannot make room for one more person to give birth, which has lead to some infamous cases where people gave birth in their cars, on their way to a neighbouring country to deliver their baby abroad. Yet another example is how the physicians are trained to treat patients. While overdiagnosing and overexamining definitely is a thing and a fact in the medical world, our doctors far too often recommend us taking pain medication "walk it off", instead of actually examining. You rarely get a CT, yet alone an MRI, and if you do, you have moths for it.

EDIT: trans specific healthcare is years behind. Again, on paper, everybody is accepted and we have our pointless pride parade, but when you actually voice your concern or need for gender affirming health care, you have to prove your dysphoria to a bunch of specialists, which takes up to five years. If and when they decide to diagnose you with gender dysphoria, then you are eligible for HRT or whatever you need. Once you get the diagnosis, the state pays for any and all gender affirmation, which is good, but the journey is murderous...

EDIT2: Certain workplaces cover both examination, treatments and medicine.

Australia

Two years ago, my dad slipped at the boat ramp and broke his wrist. He went in the local ER, presented the family Medicare card, and they worked right away to put his arm in a cast and prescribe pain medication to him. Nothing was paid out of pocket, and the card was just to verify identity, since nothing is really deducted or anything.

A few months later, he got stung on the ankle by a stingray (luckily the barb didn’t break in his leg,) and was driven to the ER by a step-family member he was able to peddle his bike to quickly. His leg was quickly put in warm water and got given antibiotics, and was admitted for a week stay. After 3 days, it was healed enough for him to voluntarily return home, even though the full stay was still there for assurance. Yet again nothing was paid out of pocket.

For general checkups and appointments, it’s a bit hit or miss, where sometimes you need to pay around $70 AUD, but for others it is fully subsidised. For example, a blood test I had recently was fully free, whereas my most recent dental appointment required payment.

The cool thing is that I actually found out through my MyGov account that Medicare emailed a notice telling me that they owed me $100 and a couple cents, since it was some sort of post-appointment subsidy. Pretty neat honestly, didn’t know at the time they’d even consider doing that.

There’s also a new tier of healthcare facilities which were and are still being built by the Albanese Labor government both last and this term, which are called Urgent Care Clinics, basically being mini hospitals for mainly physical issues like broken arms, cuts or other injuries, which are easy enough to treat. These were created to ease the burden on emergency departments of full blown hospitals, so as to allow more elderly and sick patients to get treatment with less delay.

Swede here, a doctors vist costs 300sek, though any public medical cost above 1450sek is 100% covered by the government.

This includes prescriptions, hospital visits, and more.

Back in 2019, I got mycoplasma, I was out of work for 1.5 months and stayed in a hospital for 3 nights, I paid 500sek or so for the hospital stay, this included hot meals and medication.

I got sick pay from the government, and got back all vacation days I burned at work.

From Spain here, the only things that you need to pay for is medicine if for example you need treatment for something and it's always pretty cheap as long as you are getting it because you went to the doctor. No need to pay for surgeries or anything broken, unless they are cosmetic of course, and you can call an ambulance for free too.

Brazilian here. You just go to the nearest UPA (many general clinics around town) and get your arm patched up. Sure, there will be a line.

Onde I cracked my head and went to one, they didn't let me wait, in 30 min I had the stitches already

Spain. I have private health insurance (it’s quite affordable here).

If you are dying, use the public services. They will do whatever it takes (under their material resources) to save you.

If you want comfort and probably reduce waiting times, go private. Public hospitals have long waits for anything that’s not immediately disabling/life threatening.

Example. My dad had a fall at home alone and broke his femur. He used his telemedicine device to call for help. When I got at his home, the paramedics were already there. They stabilised him, put him in ambulance and brought him to a public hospital. The same evening he had a titanium inserted. After five days in the hospital he was transferred to a recovery center.

Guess the cost?

Zero euros.

GER. I barely go to the doctor so I mostly pay for others and I love to. I earn enough to choose to get private insurance but honestly that juet goes against my ideas of public and collective insurance.

And in the other side I had to get an MRT some time ago. It seemed urgent so I got an appointment right away and the whole process has cost me 0 extra.

Canada.

As someone else mentioned the current government is trying to make things worse so we can have American style hearth care.

Primary care can be hit or miss. For my own GP I have to travel a bit back to my home town to see them because it's a bit painful to find a new one where I'm at now. It also might take a day or two to get an appointment.

It is far from perfect but I'm incredibly doubtful that private health care would improve anything at all. I just don't think the incentives align that could allow for it at all.

Spain. It's free, as expected.

But quality have gone really down in the latest decade. To the point that I don't actually feel really protected by it anymore.

Waiting lists are getting ridiculously long.

For a regular doctor you go to get a note for not working a few days can take a week or more to even see them. A specialist could easily take a year to see.

For this reason even we have free healthcare, more and more people is paying private healthcare on the side.

UK, the NHS is barely limping along but I'm still glad we have it. If you really can't wait private is still an option but I've never felt the need to even look into it. Everything's free at the point of care, it just gets paid via taxes

Living in France

I know someone who had to get a liver transplantation. The surgery was costing something like 300000 euros ( around 350,000 USD ). She could never afford such surgery. She was flown by helicopter to the hospital and back on a around 3 hours trip. Did not pay anything...

Poland

My country may be poor backwards post-soviet hole, but social media and news present USA as Fallout-style post-apocalyptic dystopia.

Every member of my family has a family doctor assigned (it's the same one for convenience). This doctor reminds us about mandatory vaccinations and tips us if there are any diseases spreading (for preparation sake). If anyone is seek we can usually schedule visit within a week, and most standard medicines are fairly cheap due to governmental control.

i live in Canada and it's a constant struggle to keep it afloat, we have our own brand of braindead morons we call maple maga that actively try to sabotage it at every possible opportunity....

what we do have is pretty good for basic coverage, but it excludes mental and *most *dental, and you still need insurance through work for costs of medicine etc. that being said, all hospital visits, stays, and treatments receive no billings.

just 'getting' universal healthcare isn't enough, you have to fight for it, and you have to fight to keep it.

Canadian here:

Our successive conservative/neo-liberal governments have been getting our public services, including health-care, for decades now.

Getting appointments for anything is near impossible. To go to a walk-in emergency clinic now requires an appointment, if you can get one. Once you have a reference to a specialist, it takes over one year to get an appointment.

However, the government, in alliance with a private company, have set up websites where you cab easily get appointments in the private sector near immediately or within 2 weeks. If you have a good job you're most likely to have private insurance to cover the fees up to 80%.

Oh and the Canadian Medical Association, is in on the racket to privatize healthcare. And one of the largest Canadian corporations, Loblaws, who owns a major stake in the grocery and pharmacy business, started investing in the healthcare business as well.

As soon as we got public single payer healthcare, capitalism has been sabotaging it constantly to the benefit of the private industry.

UK here.

Its better then America, but many fail to see that our NHS wasn't given freely, we struggled for it, and year by year we loose more of it to privatisation. I am currently witnessing one hospital closure in my county, and this is happening across the board. Nhs Waiting lists are a hot topic across the country due in part to years of austerity measures.

Hi,

(France) for a broken arm or a general checkup you wouldn't pay anything. Actually, for the checkup you would pay upfront (my doc takes 10€) and get reimbursed a few days later.

Don't be fooled, there are constant attacks on this system by the ruling class, they try and nudge the narrative a little bit every day, but it's so entrenched here I keep my hopes up that we won't let it go without a fight.

Norway. Far from perfect, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

There is a bit of a wait for non-critical stuff, but for the most part that's OK. It's technically not free: costs around 30$ equivalent to see the doctor for anything not critical. Not sure why; I think it's mostly symbolic.

My kid broke his arm last year and got a titanium rod inserted into the bone. The only expende was that I bought a sandwich while he was in surgery.

UK.

If you go to the hospital the only thing you have to pay is for the car park (assuming you were driven there).

Prescriptions cost £9.50. Or you can pay £120 for an entire year of unlimited prescriptions if you require lots of different medications.

The charge is waived if you are disabled, a student or long term unemployed.

The national insurance we pay also pays for:

Redundancy pay, sick pay, maternity pay etc.

What does it feel like? It feels great knowing that no matter how shit life might get, if my health starts to fail I won't have to worry about medical expenses on top of it all

Russia

Everyone has free health insurance that covers all procedures, doctor visits, ambulance calls, and most hospitalization cases in the respective government clinics based on where they live.

General physicians are available at any government clinic as needed, regardless of where you are. Other specialists are only available at your main clinic and directed to either by GP or as part of a free 5-yearly checkup. You can book an appointment online, call into the clinic, or come in person to do so. GPs are always available on short notice, and you can get there without booking if you need urgent care. Dentists are also available without booking for urgent cases. Trauma units operate 24/7 and accept without booking.

If you're too sick to come in person, you can also call for a GP to arrive through a unified hotline, regardless of your current location, or even whether you have Russian citizenship or insurance for that matter.

The quality of care itself is highly regionally dependent, but mostly alright. Larger cities like Moscow and Saint Petersburg have it better, smaller, faraway cities have it worse. Queues differ significantly between places and specialists, and can be anything between 15 minutes and 2-3 weeks.

Private clinics exist, prices are bitey, but the quality of care is generally high. Work can offer private health insurance, giving free access to their services.

TL;DR all free (with some paid options), available to everyone, decent quality, acceptable waiting times.

Germany. A fucker broke my arm with his car driving reckless. I paid nothing. 3 days of hospital, a surgery at my thumb (ligament tear) and several physiotherapy sessions. I also wouldn't have had to pay anything if it had been my fault. The idea behind this insurance system is, that they want you to go to work again as soon as possible. Because they also pay out sick pay. Your company pays for the first 6 weeks, then it's the insurance.

Uk. Im incredibly grateful for the NHS and regularly thankful we don't have the shitshow of medical insurance etc. However. We've had 15 or so fucking years of austerity so all public services are on their knees. The NHS are having a massive retention and recruitment issues. So in short you do get treatment, but may have to fight to not get fobbed off. Main issues are:

1. NHS try to make you go away cos they can't cope with more strain
2. Recruitment issues mean staff quality is poor
3. Lazy staff are hiding behind points 1 and 2 so that they can dodge work

So...atm it's the worst I've ever known it

Sweden.

Pretty decent for anything acute (broken something, dislocated whatchamacallit), but utter dog shit for chronic issues. "Yeah, you have sinus issues, wait 3+ months for ENT" or "Okay, Sertraline's doing shit for you except making you more grumpy, but keep trying with it". So fucking awful that literal WebMD can be better for some chronic conditions.

In Spain, if you pay all your taxes you are covered for everything for free. Issue with it is that the system is overcrowded, so people who can afford it pay for private health insurance

As an example, I pay 220€/month for a family of 3 and we are covered for everything, except dental.

Scotland, the getting to the doctor is variable. Many GPs are overrun with patients. Same day appointments are pretty much if you're lucky or if you have an actual emergency. If you just want a checkup, most of the time you can get an appointment within a week or two (or at least at my GP).

Hospital referrals can take ages, once again if it's serious or urgent you'll be seen, but otherwise it can take a very long time (like I had them get back to me 2 years after I got the referral at some point for something). You also don't know how long is the queue in front of you.

It's very variable though, I lived in a different town before and there I could walk in to the GP an be seen the same day after waiting 1-2 hours every time. That was before Brexit and COVID though.

Cost wise, all free (other than taxes). Any prescription you just walk into the pharmacy and get it for free.

The specific tax for this is around 8% (not strictly true as it covers other things than just healthcare though, like unemployment and other social benefit stuff). That being said, you get the benefit even if you are not paying the tax, students, unemployed etc.

German here. It's all paid by my social contribution aside taxes. And when I go to the doctor I pay nothing, no matter what I have as long as its not a vanity issue.

If I want something unnecessary done I would have to pay myself. But injuries or illnesses are always fully covered.

Same for teeth, but there are bigger quality differences. Paying extra there for some actions taken is common.

Japan. MRI $40. Basic doctor visit $5. Basic antibiotics $5. Almost all hospitals and clinics in the country are in-zone or whatever... There is no annual deductible.

Austrian here: medical debt does not exist.

Both my boys broke their arms snowboarding (a couple of years between each accident), costs for the first one were none because we went to a regular hospital (including everything from setting the bone to cast to regular checkups, cast removal and clean bill of health report). Son #2 had to go to a private clinic. Which was still subsidized by our national healthcare provider, so I only paid 65€ for x-ray, setting the bone and the cast. Checkup and removal back home were free.

GP visits are fully covered. Some medication is subsidized, but not everything. I rarely pay more than 10€ for a box of pills of any kind, even if I get them without a subscription (for instance sea sickness in my case). Our docs recommend various exams the older you get to catch any budding cancer cells before they can cause too much damage (Prostate exam, Mammogram, Colonoscopy, ...). All covered.

Dental depends. Fillings are covered, if you go for the cheap (bad) ones. Anything beyond that will cost you. Orthodontics depends on age. For kids up to 18yo it's completely free. Adults have to pay. Don't ask me for prices though.

Pregnancy/birth: all covered, including all necessary exams.

If a parent is insured (i.e. employed), their kids are covered as well automatically.

Never in my 45+ years have I ever had to wonder if I could afford a medical procedure. Sure, there's a big lump of money removed from my paycheck every month (minimum employment period is a month, you can't fire people with shorter notice except when they messed up royally). But it's the same for everyone in the same salary bracket (more income = higher share; does not change level of care), and it is a guarantee for social peace.

The Netherlands.

Had gall stones fucking with me. Had 3 attacks happen in the middle of the night over a 8 month period which resulted in me showing up to the ER due to sweating bullets of pain. They got worried one day due to high infection counters in the blood, but it actually was fine by the time they checked again.

With gall stones, you need to have "enough attacks" before they refer they let you rip the fucker out. So eventually I got referred. 4 week waiting time from consult to operation (just coming out of corona time late 2021, not sure if that matters). Had a secondary infection around my navel which resulted in 6 weeks of manual flushing the wound and had to reopen it due to external skin healing too quick.

All of this cost €385, which was my "own risk" which resets every calendar year. All vists (even middle of the night), surgery, post care (even infection stuff) included. I never once thought about the cost, and the bill comes 6-9 months later.

(Note, you do pay for medical insurance here, however it is required by law to have it. People get fines if they dont have it. Subsidies/free for low incomes. Its essentially tax at the end etc. All "base insurance" from all providers must cover 100% GP costs, and a bunch of other things).

Ireland. Public health is high quality but it can be slow to get into the system. If you want high quality and fast you pay for insurance which is about 2K per year, depending on age and cover.

All prescribed medicine maxes out at 80 euro / about 95 USD a month for our entire family. Government covers the rest.

You pay for trips to the GP (local doctor) which are about 60 euro / 75 USD unless you're low income in which case they're free. They will refer you to the hospital if necessary and that is free.

At that point if you're not private things can get slow but my most recent example was fast. Daughter had ongoing headaches for a while. Third trip to the GP she wrote the referral letter and we went to the emergency room. She got seen quickly and they set up an MRI for the following week. After that we had two follow ups with a consultant (high level specialist doctor). All free.

There is huge room for improvement but I honestly couldn't imagine living in a place that will let you die if you don't have enough money. I honestly find that notion both crazy and disgusting.

Edit: I forgot to add, if you just show up to accident and emergency without a referral it's 100 euro / 120 USD. Regardless of treatment that's the full cost. Triage can mean that if you don't actually have an emergency you'll be waiting hours. If you show up with life threatening symptoms you'll be seen very quickly though.

Ambulance is always free.

There are other supports for folks who need regular trips to the hospital but can't drive (e.g. regular chemo). There's a community car here in my town for example (10k people) with volunteers but I think they cover taxis in many cases.

Last edit: you can claim any medical expenses for the year off your tax bill

Canadian:

Lots of things are covered, not even a bill or anything to sign put in front of you. Childbirth: $0. ER visit for an injury: $0. Tests of all kinds: $0

Mental, dental, and eye care are out of pocket. If you have a job that is a "career", as in not fast food etc., you will likely have some workplace coverage for that stuff through insurance. My insurance covers eye exam and some money for glasses every 2 years, fairly generous amount for dental that will pay for cleaning and cavity filling and small procedures, drug coverage so most medications are $0, but sadly only a pittance for mental health (therapy, psychiatrist, etc).

amazing. i cant fathom this not being the global norm

I don't know what to say, I can't imagine it being any other way.

In Switzerland, it works like this: you choose your deductible, between 300 CHF (_{330 EUR) and 2500 CHF (}2730 EUR) per year. Lower deductible means higher premiums and vice versa. A typical premium for a 2500 deductible might be 4000 CHF per year (4360 EUR). The insurance companies are private, and they compete, but, the insurance terms are fixed by the state by law - so it doesn't really matter which insurance company you choose. There is zero bullshit like in the USA where, once you need something, they go "ah well you see on page 32478234 of our terms it says you can get rekt, actually". If you need medical services, you get them. It is the law.

Insurance is compulsory. People who can't afford the premium get subsidies by the state. People who don't earn any money for any reason get the entire premium paid for by social services.

Australia here.

I'm going to start off with this since most Americans I have spoken with don't know it: You can have private health cover on top of the universal healthcare which subsidizes dental, glasses, private hospital cover, maternity and prosthetics etc. Important to note, private cover still gets the benefit of the universal health care. For example, about 18 years ago having a voluntary c-section in a private hospital without health cover was ~$5k, but you would be covered in a public hospital or if your private cover took care of x%. For that $5k my wife and I had a private room with a queen size bed and I was also covered for meals for 3 nights. That's also when I realized my private cover didn't have maternity care, oh well.

Private cover also gives you a tax rebate.

Last year I went to doctor with a sore thumb that wasn't getting better after a week and a half (fell on it when sitting down on wet grass). Private practice, after hours, had to pay the gap fee of ~$80 for which I got a partial rebate back into my account next day. He examined me, wrote up up two scripts and told me to get an x-ray and ultrasound with urgency first thing in the morning.

I called up, made a booking while driving to work, and quoted what he said. By 10 am I was getting the scans. By 3pm I got a call that they had set me up to get an MRI at a private hospital for 8pm that night. Total cost? The $80 gap that I got partially refunded. I ended up going with a top rated private plastic surgeon since I had coverage but I could have gone with the public system and gotten fixed up. I ended up getting a tailor made splint at a private clinic during recovery and found out that way my private insurance didn't have prosthetics, so I ended up ~$180 out of pocket.

As another example, about 10 years ago my grandma was going through chemo. A pensioner ,no health insurance, she paid ~$20 gap for a months worth of medication. I looked up the unsubsidized price and it was the cost of a small car ~30,000. That is a result of the PBS (pharmaceutical benefit scheme) where the main lever is, the government negotiates the price of medicine, and then subsidies it. The standing agreement is that you can't charge more for a class of drugs that the lowest provider of a similar medication. Numerous Australia-US free trade agreements have tried to water this down but its always been a hard no, its a beloved system and even our conservative government knows it would be political suicide if they ever tried to weaken it.

Really importantly to understand is also the safety net. If your out of pocket costs for the public healthcare (gap fees etc) exceed a threshold for the year, those gap fees start getting additionally covered between 80-100% (depending if it is in hospital or out of hospital care.) And those benefits start coming in after you are only $594.40 out of pocket.
https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/how-medicare-safety-nets-and-thresholds-work?context=22001 https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/what-are-medicare-safety-nets-thresholds?context=22001

Portugal.

Health care is free in the public system. Prescriptions cost but they are token amounts, usually like 50 cents to 5 euros.

Emergency and urgent care is generally good.

Routine care, like family doctor / GP stuff, has some issues with wait times.

Private hospital systems exist as do private insurance plans, but these are pretty inexpensive. In general, they treat routine to minor problems. For major surgeries or serious stuff like cancer treatment, you’ll likely be handled in the public hospitals anyway.

Should not have opened this today. Was already depressed.

Netherlands: 2x stage 4 cancer with 10 years difference, so constant checkups, and of course the 2 treatments. we have "eigen risico" (own contribution) here (385 eur per year), and due to the many checkups I always max this out, but that's pretty much where it ends, everything else is covered by the state (well, my state health insurance). the treatments were of course FoC, incl all the scans, the chemo, an operation, etc. i can not imagine the stress somebody without health insurance must have, when facing something like this. there are things that health insurance doesn't cover or not fully: dentist i bought extra coverage for, fysiotherapy is only covered max 10x per year.

Ontario, Canada:

My wife had bad abdominal pains in the evening. She's had period cramps before, and it wasn't this. She's even had ovarian cysts go, which were terrible, but weren't this. So we went to the hospital. We sat in chairs for probably 5 hours, then got a physical exam by a doctor. They sent us for an ultrasound within the hospital to see if it was an ovarian cyst, but nothing showed on that. That took a few hours. Then we went for a CAT I think it was, also within the hospital, and that showed that it was a swollen appendix. Sat in chairs upstairs, not the entryway, for another hour or so, until the doctor came by and told us that she should probably have that out, but that it wasn't an imminent emergency and so they'll keep her overnight in case something happens, give some pain meds, and then have surgery the next morning when the OR opens again proper, because by now it was probably 2am.

So she got a bed upatairs, I went home and slept at home, then met her the next morning back in her room. She did have a roommate in her room, and that roomie sucked, so that's unfortunate. Then she went for surgery while I watched TV in the waiting room, then she was rolled out and stayed in a recovery room for a few hours while the anaesthesia wore off. The nurse came by and gave us medication to take, along with a prescription for some other meds, and some instructions, and we went on our way. The surgery was laparoscopic, so it only took a week or so to heal, and she was up and shuffling by the end of that first day.

All told, it was probably about 18 hours beginning to end, but that included some sleep in the middle. And, importantly, she didn't die at any point in that process.

At no point in this process did my money leave my pocket. Money was simply not discussed. When weighing the options of going to the hospital versus staying home, or staying in the hospital overnight versus going home, or having the surgery versus not, or having a laparoscopic surgery versus not, money was never a factor. At all times our collective concern was on the health of my wife.

Her surprise appendicitis didn't impact our life in any way, besides the one day we spent hanging out at the hospital.

UK, only concern was how will I get home. Could walk but it's 3AM and cold, do I still need cash for a taxi?

China

I broke my foot during the previous spring festival. They called the surgeon back from his holiday, opened a operating room especially for my surgery, got a private room and my wife could stay in the room with me on a extra bed, 6 days in hospital. Total cost around €120 including x-rays, medication etc. The only thing I had to pay for extra was lunch at 2€.

General checkup is 50 RMB which is 7 US$.

More price comparison info: https://www.lostincn.com/medical-tourism-cost-china-price-guide-2026/

Germany.

I had a nasty fall off my bike about five weeks ago, but nothing seemed immediately broken. I went to the orthopedist the next day. Hand X-ray, then CT. Got a splint prescribed. I had to pay a 10€ fee for the splint, and might need to pay for the CT (we did it directly there instead of referring to a radiologist), but the insurance might cover it, as the reason for not transferring was due to a holiday and long weekend starting the next day.

Then I realized my other hand was having issues. Back to orthopedist. X-ray, referral to MRI, elbow splint prescribed. 10€ fee for the splint.

I also had some magnet field therapy, which I had to pay out of pocket: 40€ per session.

So the total out-of-pocket cost, assuming my insurance covers the CT: 300€ for three orthopedist visits, CT, MRI, two splints, and seven sessions of magnet therapy.

Germany does allow certain high earners to opt out of the public insurance and go private, ans the experience for privately insured people tends to be better, which I think sucks a lot. I personally am on the public plan and am overall very happy with it, but I can also easily afford the things that are out of pocket.

UK. It's great, mostly. However it is underfunded which means you can have long wait times for non-urgent stuff. If a hospital referral sees you in a week or so you can take that as a sign that you are fucked. But it's amazing not to have to fear financial ruin if I get sick. I think most UK taxpayers wouldn't mind paying a little extra if it was ringfenced for the NHS. We need more medical staff and they need to be paid a lot better.

Edit - dental care can be pretty expensive though.

What is it like here in France? I don't have to lose sleep at night because I can't afford the cosmically expensive medications that are the only thing keeping me alive. Edit: well worth the many taxes I pay...

Serbia - but more specific to my town it seems.

By the time I was born, they already sabotaged universal healthcare to such near uselesness, that I was prescribed horse meat as a child to treat my immune defficiency.

It has only gotten worse since.

They just look up your diagnosis, and prescribe generic meds that you have to buy.

It's rare that anything gets investigated or tested. All I can say is I had a mole removed for free, after an injury.

Canadian here.

All my prescriptions are paid out of pocket but it's not very expensive. 4 different pills is around $300 to $400 a year.

All tests and lab work are zero cost as is doctor visits.

Here in Nova Scotia, we have a doctor shortage so Registered Nurses were assigned their own clinics. Imho, my nurse is giving me better care than any doctor I've been to. They take the time to listen and are very knowledgeable. Doctors just want you in and out so they can see any many patients as possible in one day (it's how they make money in a private practice).

Wait times at the ER takes longer than it did pre-covid. I had an issue years ago. All the walkins (I didn't have a GP at the time) were full so I went to the ER Saturday morning. I was back home within 4 hours and that was after waiting at a pharmacy to get the prescription filled.

Two years ago, same issue came back. My nurse told me I had to go to the ER. After 4.5 hours I went home without seeing anyone. There was a total of 6 people in the ER's waiting area. Two days later someone from the hospital called and asked me why I left.

Today, we can go to a pharmacy and be treated for a number of conditions without taking up resources at the ER.

Sweden here. Our health system is under some strain right now but still functioning. If we want a GP appointment we have to call at exactly 08:00 am to register and then get a call back several hours later, usually you get an appointment the same day if it's potentially serious, a week or two for non-urgent issues. There are GP offices and health centres everywhere, even in small towns of 1-2 k people, so you rarely have to go far. We have an annual fee cap of about €300 after which all prescriptions and treatments are free. In many cases your employer will refund the cost of doctors appointments (€20). My partner had a tissue sample tested for breast cancer recently (negative thankfully!) it was totally free and took about a month for the results.

NZ:

Doctor visit is fairly expensive, but very dependant on whichever government we have in. Between $0-45 per visit, kids are always free up to 18 years old. Kids meds are free.

ER is free, any meds prescribed from a hospital are free.

Dentistry is free up to 18 years old, excessively expensive after that.

Generally injuries are covered by ACC, so specialists related to an injury are also mostly covered.

I spent 28 days in hospital 3 years ago, including helicopter transfer on day 1 and two weeks later ambulance ride to a bigger hospital. Got surgery on my lung and various other procedures. Total cost $0.

Norway

General checkup: 2-3 weeks waiting time, cost 120-360 NOK (~20 US gallons)

Broken arm: Trip to ER, waiting time 0 minutes to 4 hours depending on pressure. Travel costs are reimbursed. Cost 0 NOK. (0 inches of coin)

Eye surgery: Few months waiting time. Travel costs reimbursed. if it was a surgery that was necessary to prevent severe handicap, cost is 0 NOK. If it is surgery to just remove the need to wear glasses, you'd have to pay the thing. Roughly 35000 NOK (3800 Fahrenheit)

I had an appendicitis go undiagnosed for a few days (partly because of bad emergency care, partly because I keep waiting forever before seeing a doctor). Turned into peritonitis, as it does. Decision to operate was instantaneous; I didn't even go back to the emergency "landing area" after the radiography, but straight to showering before the operating room. Then, had to spent a week in the hospital, including four days of full-blown crazyness-inducing fever, three different kinds of painkillers (btw I'm allergic to three derivatives of morphine… found out the fun way).

It all cost me something around 8€ in the end. That would have been around… $8 at the time. Not to mention, I had no issue at my job back then because we have sick leave too.

At no point in any of this have I considered "but can I avoid going to the doctor" or "I should leave the hospital as soon as possible", or "I have to work during this week of madness". I just got better, and got back on track.

That was France, btw.

Canada. You don't pay for a broken arm or a checkup. You only pay for things like physiotherapy or massage. Dentisit is covered if you're old, young, or not making much money. Pharmacy is covered (with a small fee) if you're old. The emergency room works on a triage system so, if you're not seriously sick, you'll probably wait a long time. There are long wait times for specialists in some areas. I can't speak for everyone, but the care my extended family and I have received has been excellent.

Slovakia here. It's pretty liberating, TBH. Even despite trying to stay healthy and vital, one will eventually get sick or injured and will need help. It is nice that it is already paid (by taxes) and we can just get the needed care without fear of of ruining ourselves financially. Also meds are pretty cheap or free for patients.

The system is set out in the way that it is better for state that patients be healthy, because patients' sickness is state's expense. So state tries to limit its spending while still providing reasonable care. Although, it is hard with the population getting generally older (more serious, and so expensive, illnesses) while we still have only very limited medicine to reverse aging.

I am wondering how the universal health care system affects humans proactivity for preserving their health. But from what I have heard, it is unfortunately low in both cases 😕

Australia.

I don't think about my health. Like, at all. If something is wrong they'll deal with it.

Not broken an arm, but I broke my leg in a car crash, air lifted to hospital and a couple weeks stay, $0.

UK here. Last year I spent four months in hospital with a moderately obscure neurological condition called Guilian Barre syndrome, half of it in critical care (some sedated) and much of the rest in a specialist neuro-rehab unit. My partner had a foot amputated two years ago after spending several weeks in hospital with blood poisoning caused by an infected foot ulcer, they now had a prosthetic leg and have had physiotherapy and psychological counselling (they recognise it's a big life change). We're both disabled, and my partner has dialysis three times a week. I take 11 prescription pills a day (plus three non prescription magnesium recommended by a physiotherapist). Nurses are generally friendly and caring (if understaffed and overworked), and the doctors don't have the adversarial money-driven approach I hear about from the US, plus they're often some of the best in the world - my partner got one of the world's leading podiatrists because they happened to get his rotation!

Total cost for medical care: £0.00 plus some petrol and taxi rides - being registered disabled I don't even pay for prescriptions but if I did it's, I think, £12.50 a time no matter how many pills you're collecting.

The NHS is not flawless: recently my partner had a day surgery that turned into a week as an in-patient as the second part of the surgery kept being pushed back (some for good reasons like the Accident and Emergency department having a sudden glut and needing all the surgeons, some for less good reasons); wait times in A&E can be as much as 12 hours on uncomfortable (but easily cleaned) seats if you're not an emergency and you show up at a busy time like Friday night; and waiting lists for adult ADHD diagnosis was seven years (so I went private cos I could afford it). It also don't fully cover dental work (and finding an NHS dentist is notoriously difficult), and if you have a complex prescription it doesn't fully cover glasses either, but it does contribute to both of those bringing them down to merely expensive rather than ludicrous.

But when you really need it, it's there, you will get good care, and you don't have to worry about being bankrupted.

Would recommend, 9 out of 10

Australia. A broken arm no fee. General check up - no fee.

Austria here. Costs go from nothing to basically nothing. Prescribed medicine costs a flat fee of a few € per item/box. Wait times are usually short but can vary, I've only had really bad experiences for general doctors outside of normal hours (there are always some of them open for availability on weekends and holidays). But that's to be expected.

Canada - All of that would be covered, prescriptions aren't.

Seemingly more and more people want the American system.

Romania: I use the private system cause the public system is mostly crap. People are still sometimes literally catching infections and dying in hospital, having been hospitalized for smth completely different. It's improving though. To clarify, the aforementioned situation is news-worthy nowadays, but still...

Private system is relatively affordable and partially integrated into the national one, so that's nice. You can see a specialist for like $50, or for free if your GP refers you to them.

Germany, due to politicians gutting it more and more and it needing reforms its going down hill systemicly.

But its better than having none!

Worse than it used to be. Better than it will be. Not free because we pay it through taxes and medicines aren't cheap.

Sweden. Doctor's appointments cost ~€30, normally capped at ~€150 per year. There's a cost ceiling for drugs at ~€300 per year. Urgent care is free. Dental is subsidized but only free up to age 19. The care itself is fine, there are multiple research hospitals and if you're in a real bind one of the best research hospitals in the world.

I'd gladly pay higher taxes for better healthcare.

France

Fainted outside while getting a covid test with 40C fever

Ambulance trip to the hospital

Stayed a few hours

0€

Sweden.

I broke my knee at 16. Hospital bill: $0 (because I was under age at the time)

Any consultation with a nurse/doctor follows the standard fee of:~$25

Everyone gets free dental until they turn 26 years old.

My dad recently broke his arm (again). The total bill from the hospital including casting and xray: ~$35

If you have to spend more than ~$200 on medications in a year, you will be capped at that amount and everything above is literally, free.

Same goes for doctors visits but that's a separate ~$200 cap reached independently

Its nice. Paramedics and the hospital saved my life so im grateful.

Canada

I stayed with my parents for a few days when my grandmother died. I was sleeping on the couch and mom my noticed I wasn't breathing at regular intervals. She said I should get a sleep test when I flew home on Sunday.

I called my doctor on Monday, had an appointment on Wednesday, he sent a referral and I got called on Friday that there was a cancellation that night if I could make to the sleep lab for a sleep test. I had no plans so I paid for parking outside the sleep lab for the night.

I got a call Monday that my test results were back, went to an appointment a few weeks later. Paid for parking again. Was given a trial CPAP to use until a got another sleep test with the machine to get a proper pressure level. I was told not to drive until that test. I paid for subways and busses until that test a week later.

I went for another sleep test, I paid for a taxi since I wasn't allowed to drive.

I got a machine, a paid $700 dollars and a portion was covered by the govt and then my extended benefits covered the majority. I paid maybe $150 in the end for my machine because I didn't get the basic model that would have been completely covered.

In all I paid less than 200 for the CPAP and for parking. Everything else was covered.

In the years since I have had about 6 more sleep tests and that is only because my sleep apnea is complex central sleep apnea not obstructive. I have paid nothing for any of those tests or heart and brain scans that were involved. Just the occasional parking near a hospital.

I've paid for CPAP machines and masks but had them reimbursed by my extended benefits through work. If I wasn't covered through work they would still be covered to a certain amount through provincial medical coverage.

Latvia, a country where 1000 EUR after tax is considered a decent salary, but realistically you need to earn above that to live comfortably. There is a certain budget and quotas for government-funded procedures and appointments. For in-demand things it runs very fast. It's normal to have to get an appointment for non-urgent things 3-6 months in advance to get a partially funded price, then it usually costs less than 10 EUR per. Non-subsidized appointment slots are generally available very fast, but can cost anywhere form 25 to 90 EUR depending on the doctor, clinic and so on. Blood test subsidies are also very few and far between. I think I can only get one subsidized TSH test a year. There are private health insurance plans that generally cost triple digit sums per year. Not worth taking it privately as they will not cover existing chronic health conditions, but can be great if arranged through and partially covered by the employer. These insurances return part of the costs that patients pay out of pocket for these non-subsidized expenses. I think the rising popularity of these plans are partially to blame for 2-3x increase in medical appointment costs over the past 10 years.

Every now and then I see old people trying to register for appointments at the clinics and being astonished that they'll have to either wait for half a year or to pay 1/10th of their pension to see the doc in a couple of weeks.

I don't know that much about urgent procedures. I believe the ambulance rides are covered if the medical emergency is deemed serious enough. Surgeries and hospital stays are also partially covered for a time, especially in serious cases.

Canadian here. I broke my leg in January. The only thing I ended up paying for was $25 for a pair of crutches. I did have to wait a significant amount of time to get seen, but its a small hospital and someone walked in with a stab wound right after me, so I was okay with it.

We do currently have a doctor shortage in my province and I myself do not have a family doctor, which does complicate things, but there are clinics around that I can still go to that are just less personal than a family physician.

We do have to pay out of pocket for prescriptions, but generally speaking the cost for most things are pretty low. There's also a whole bunch of basic I also have 80% drug coverage through my employer, which is pretty common as well. In addition in my province a lot of diabetes medication is provided free of charge.

Our family public health insurance in Germany is 12.5% of your income. There's minimum rates for people who make very little income, but it does cover your household and dependents.

Checkups, illness visits, and initial consultations are free. I had a specialist visit with a cardiologist and it cost zero.

The dental only covers basics. The cost on extra dental is way less than it was in the US for basics.

In the US our good company insurance cost $1200/month, and even then we'd have $3k/year deductables. Oh, and every visit not in the annual checkup was a minimum of $170 out of pocket. Specialists would be $400 out of pocket per visit.

Seeing a non-emergency specialist in Germany can take months. Of course, it was the same in the US, so whatever. Both countries could be better, and should work to improve services available. I'd take Germany's system any day over the commercialized mess that is the US commoditzing and charging people to live.

Nz here. Broken arm, go to emergency room, will cost about $50. Hospital would be free. General visit, probably $50 too, prices went up recently. Lower income is subsidised so cheaper if you can't afford much. Wait times are up to a few hours in ER and it's triaged on urgency

UK

If you need urgent care, you get it and it's almost always high-quality. If non-urgent, you might wait several months for an appointment. I've never personally had a problem with quality of care, only wait times. That's one of the reasons the government is trying to reform the way we do cancer screening and prevention, because it's hard to catch it early when it takes so long to be seen. The NHS is not in a great state currently, but it's getting better and we're definitely better off with it than without it.

I live in Germany. It can be a bit complicated...
I was encouraged to sign a "contract" with my GP saying I should always go to them first with any non-emergency issue and they'll refer me to a specialized doctor. The idea is to have all my medical info in one place, which makes sense.

So I was at work, pulling open a desk to wire up all the IT stuff, when something in my finger snapped.
I reported it to my team leader. He gave me an ice pack and told a colleague to drive me to the doctor.
The colleague asked me where to drive to, and I honestly had no idea. This is the first issue. I was expected to decide: Is this an emergency? It's not life-threatening, but it hurt and started to swell quickly. How time-critical is it, in order not to lose use of the finger? Should I go to the hospital? Do I need an X-Ray? How the fuck should I know before a doctor looked at it?

So I googled "X-Ray clinic" in my home town and found a big one. I waited in the phone queue while we started driving. Eventually I got through and they told me they only accept patients with referrals from a doctor.
So we re-routed to my GP, which is half an hour drive. When we got there and had found a parking spot, a sign at the door said that the doctor's practice had moved to a new address the week before.
We drove to the new address. I talked to the receptionist. She told us that since this is a work accident, I need to visit my workplace's approved doctor. She asked which one that is, and which insurance is responsible. I had no idea.

So I called my team leader. He also didn't know. He said he'd find out and call back. We waited.
After 15 minutes, we had the right address. It was a 30 minute drive in the other direction.
When we got there and had found a parking spot, a sign at the door informed us that the practice had recently moved.
We drove to the new address, which was another 30 minute drive, but within walking distance of my workplace. I was finally admitted to get looked at.

By then the ice pack had long melted, my finger was swollen, hurting and throbbing, and the receptionist told me she can't give me a new ice pack, only a doctor can. She then handed me a 4 page document in small print to fill out.
So I sat there, with a swollen, throbbing hand, filling out all kinds of info about me, my medical history, allergies, my work place info, insurance number, how I got injured, whether I had reported the injury, etc.

Then I had to wait an hour, was given an X-Ray, and 10 minutes of a doctor's time, who told me they can't see what it is. I should come back in a week if it doesn't get better, and then they'd give me a CT scan.
A week later, it was not fully healed but much better, so I didn't go back. That was 6 months ago. I can use the finger normally and have no pain, but I can still feel it a little.

France.

General checkups are considered a US only thing that is actually detrimental. You don't go see a doctor if you're all right usually, there a few stupid reasons you still have to. If you have a benign seasonal illness but you need to be off work you need a form filled out by the doctor so your employer has to allow it and the health insurance can pay if they need to (I'll spare you the details but it mostly depends on the duration of your illness), if you are joining a sports club you typically need your doctor to certify you're fine to do that (this needs to stop doctors aren't nannies and they have too much work as it is!!!).

I'm very fortunate that I have a GP who's generally available within a day or two. There's a shortage for all healthcare professions, the French refuse to believe it but it's mostly because it pays shit: Luxembourg and Switzerland don't nearly have as many issues getting enough staff in hospitals. A lot of people don't even have a GP. If you can't travel the waiting times for some exams or specialists are 6 months or more, people think this is somehow acceptable. You can still do medical tourism at the expense of French insurance if you border one of the richer countries, any money leftover you'd have to pay would be a pretty reasonable amount but they may try to wriggle out of paying claiming you're doing medical tourism for no good reason.

For cancer checks if you live near one of the good hospitals for cancer you don't have to worry too much about them making you wait until it gets to stage 4. But you have to be assertive and advocate for yourself if you don't and possibly give up and go 500 km away.

For a broken arm you'd pay nothing usually unless you're in the cracks of the mandatory extra insurance thing because you don't have a job but you're also too rich for the State-funded one, so maybe around 50€ including X-rays and the cast.

France is very behind on mental health care and psychiatric wards in hospitals are a disgrace mostly due to extreme understaffing by doctors. For most other things they're all right except busy ERs have insane waiting times and they have no money to hospitalise you if you will survive so they'll send you home even if you barely have the strength to get into a taxi.

The food in hospitals is all right but I wouldn't ask too much of the vegan options.

Germany

Mostly 0€ at the doctor, but per medicine 10€ (which sounds nice but with chronic illness and a stack, yes it's still not much).

Some exceptions apply, but it's still mostly good overall.

American here on Medicaid, I expect it's a lot like that.

You can do things for free or cheap but some things have so long waiting times, that you opt for private doctors, which can be somewhat cheap, at least in comparison with the US and because there is "competition" with the public system.

Canada here. I'm very thankful for it. I don't think I'd survive if I had to individually pay.

Norway - I think the basic way you and me think about anything health related are so vastly different, its hard for each of us to comprehend the others mindset.

apparently dental care is quite expensive in some countries despite covering for healthcare that isnt teeth. just for context, in some areas in states, west coast. i had limited x-ray exam on tooths that were hurting it was around several hundred outofpocket, no insurance. seems inidvidual insurance is alot worst for dental than an employer negotiated one.

and that xray isnt looking at your whole mouth. all bets are off on cost if your tooth needs rootcanal, crowns,,,etc. apparently molars are more expensive compared to front teeth for rootcanal and crowns. RTC itself(not including xray or general workup) can be 1-2k per teeth, doesnt include temp crowns. definitely have to shop around if your insurance doesnt pay for it, or a specific clinic cost too much.

We pay 25 usd ish per doctors appointment in Norway. With a cap of 300 or something.

Some medication you’ll have to pay for. But it’s pretty heavily subsidised.

But like when my wife gave birth, we paid nothing

What's it like to go to doctor?

Well, annoying. Something is wrong in your body and that's never fun. And then they need to do some procedures that also usually won't feel nice.

A broken arm, for example, probably means some kind of painkiller pushed into my muscles with a syringe. That hurts. And then I'll be needing a cast. Meh.

This answer sounds kind of banal... But this is proably about what you did expect(?)
And I don't know if I'd have to pay. Never broken an arm. Probably nothing. Or maybe many tens of euros? Definitely not over 50 €, though.

I'm in Finland, but this should, by all logic, apply to pretty much the whole of not-USA.

UK

I have never paid anything for any kind of medical care. I do pay for my medicine prescriptions, which coat about £10 when I need them, which is infrequent.

They are essentially capped at something like £120 per year if you did need a lot.

Aus.

I'm waiting for minor surgery. Basically every 6 months or so they make me come to the hospital to talk to a nurse or doctor or whatever, it's pretty pointless. Ends with them saying "yep you need surgery" then I go back to waiting. No idea when I'll actually get it done, should be any year now.

If I got private insurance I'd have to wait a year before cashing out, so I'm fine not paying anything and waiting a bit longer. If I had known I'd be waiting as long as I have I might have opted for private, but there isn't any solid timeline given for waiting times.

Everything outside of that is quick and easy. Go to gp, get referral, see specialist. No roadblocks at all, but the specialists likely cost a couple hundred bucks. Medication is pretty cheap, usually $10-20 for a month's supply of anything you need.

I'm never sure how to answer this because the concept of universal healthcare being a debate is strange to me, often it seems to coincide with "free" healthcare debates but the two seem quite different to me. Isn't healthcare universal in countries like the US too? The problem being rather that it will bankrupt your family for 3 generations if you have to actually use it unless your employer values you staying alive instead of using the threat of death and disease as leverage to make you work harder for less pay. But that's more a problem of universal insurance rather than universal healthcare itself, right? Anyone could still get treated if they accept the financial consequences. The system sucks, but still seems universal to me (again, universal insurance is the problem).

It's not free over here, but everyone needs to have health insurance, and you get some subsidies to pay for it if you have a very low income. After a few decades of neoliberalism the subsidies are not sufficient, there's an amount each year that you have to pay yourself, and hospitals are permanently nearly overwhelmed. But the financial amounts are much smaller compared to what someone in the US would be faced with (150-200 euros/month insurance, max 450 euros/year you have to pay yourself). There are waiting lists but despite memes I've seen of "yeah it's more affordable in Europe but they never get treatment due to waiting lists", I've never had to wait for actually urgent care, stuff I could do any time had some wait time but nothing crazy (few weeks, rarely 1-2 months for very in-demand optional stuff), and I believe overworked hospitals with crazy waiting lists are still much worse in (some) American hospitals compared to here. But I'm basing that off tv shows and movies where people have to wait for hours in the emergency department, not sure how realistic that is. By the way visits to the GP are free and I've never had to wait more than a day for an appointment. When I had something more serious I could stop by the GP instantly regardless of the appointment schedule.

Basically if you compare it to the situation a few decades before it's worse, and some other European countries have better systems IMO. Compared to the US, which is the only country I know of where universal VS non-universal health care is a topic of debate, i can't think of a single dimension in which it is not an upgrade, perhaps with the exception of shareholder profits (but even then a full economic argument wouldn't work based on that, because sick or dead citizens don't work very well).

Netherlands

Canadian. The hospitals are overcrowded and can be a bit dirty, but the quality of care is good and the staff do their best. The biggest problem is wait times, which is typically many hours. No hospital bills, though. A previous Liberal government partially implemented universal pharmacare, but it's still only in its first phase and only applies to insulin and a few other things. I don't expect that it will progress past phase 1.

Universal healthcare is popular enough that they can't just abolish it, but right wing provincial governments (healthcare is administered at the provincial level) continually underfund and mismanage it with the hopes of replacing it with a private, for-profit system. The idea is to degrade the system enough to convince the population that fully public healthcare is untenable, and that private options are needed to take some of the load off of the public system. Then, with its replacement in place, the public system can be defunded at an accelerated rate and eventually fully privatized. This demonstrates that social democracy is untenable, and that a dictatorship of the proletariat is needed to protect the gains of the working class.

Italy here.

It's great to have it, and as I see what happens around the world I understand how nearly utopian-like the concept is.

... but people will complain and moan about it anyway, and the main reason is that:

• while being universal every different region (20 in italy) has its own locally administered and budgeted subsystem implementation which might will differ from the next region system and so patients data won't be able to be transferable or even observable from each different region network
  Also the level of cures you receive might vary in their quality from region to region

• it is understaffed because the salary is not worth the responsibilities, unless you get to be a specialist doctor, so for instance there are not nearly enough nurses or sometimes triage doctors, and so many workers have to go through extenuating working hours schedules to cover missing work force, and of course this will affect their performance and even send someone into burnout

• it is understaffed because it is underbudgeted, and this is by design by politicians, ultimately run by right-wingers since some decades already, who are trying to give the people more and more reason to hate the public health system, so one day they might be able to succeed to sell all the public (paid with peoples taxes) infrastructures to privates, transforming the public health system into the "american dream" health system

• it is underbudgeted because taxes here are paid for the 70% of the total by employees and by retired people, which constitutes but a glimpse of the personal profits of the total, while every one with an autonomous job, including companies, just fuck with taxes, year after year, in a systematic and systemic way, so much that every new government will indict a new taxation amnesty because the budget needed to go after the unpaid taxation is more than the taxation not earned.
  ...oh yeah and then after that the same politician will complain and moan about the public health system being inefficient and needing a privatization reform.

Canadian here I can fall off a ladder break my arm or a leg have a family member drive me to the hospital the doctor will place it cast it send me home and I won't pay a cent. The things you do pay for parking, unnecessary ambulance rides, leg braces, wheelchairs, crutches, unnecessary medication not given to you, prescriptions

If you come in with blue lights over your head it's great. For non urgent stuff it sucks.

Tried to book an appointment, they did not pick up the phone. Tried calling someone else, they told me to call the place I was registered at (the ones who did not pick up). Cost would have been something like $20 had I bothered to have it looked at. Capped at something like $300 per year.

I have not had to try the urget care (yet) but I know people who have had stroke, cancer, complicated broken bones, who are as good as new and not bankrupt.

UK resident: it is brilliant. HOWEVER the politicians seek to turn it into a private system by way of a thousand cuts and being paid members of various think tanks and even being on company boards.

Italy:

Going to doctor is free. Going to hospital is free unless you went for a non-emergency. In that case you may be eligible to pay something like 30€ (if you are poor you pay 0 anyways).

I have lived in several countries so I can give you a few answers:

Brazil:

You have two options, private which is generally expensive but fast and good and public which is free but usually slow and mediocre. Most people who can afford it use private, but public system is honestly quite good in some places. I lived in two different cities, on one of them you didn't go to the public system unless it was an absolute emergency, because otherwise chances were you would come out worse, on the other city the public system was slow and under budgeted but very good otherwise, you would still prefer private if you could afford it, but people tight on money would use it, so you might do time insensitive stuff on the public system for example.

If you break your leg you would call an ambulance, get taken to a public hospital and be treated all free. You might have to wait on the hospital as people with graver injuries would be taken ahead of you.

Ireland:

There is a public system, but you have to earn below a certain threshold to be able to use it. Emergencies I think are covered for everyone, luckily I never had an emergency while living there so can't speak from experience. You MUST have a GP, and most of them (at least in Dublin) are not taking new patients. Once you find a GP you must go through them to get to any specialist, for that you pay €60 and then you go to a consultation with them and they can decide whether to forward you to a specialist or not. If they forward you to a specialist you will have to pay their consultation fee, then pay for any exams, they pay to see the specialist again. All-in-all I've spent around €1000 trying to get a diagnosis once, luckily I had health insurance and it paid me back half.

Spain:

My wife twisted her ankle while visiting here as tourists, someone called an ambulance, it took us to the hospital, and after some wait se was seen and they did an x-ray, confirmed nothing was broken and gave her some special socks to prevent the joint from forcing too much. Because we forgot to bring our sanitary card from Ireland we had to pay for that, it was a total of €200.

We live here now, and since moving here a couple of years back we have gone through dozens of doctors and exams. I have a health plan from my company so this might not be the same for everyone, but I have never paid a single cent for anything, including X-rays, blood works, CAT scans, etc. Honestly I keep thinking at some point I will receive a huge bill from the health plan, but so far it has never happened.

I'm at the doctor right now here in Australia

Paid nothing. Paid nothing for my tests too

Canadian. I have a chronic issue that I wait long times to see a specialist. Mainly because after seeing them for a few visits to update treatment, I don't see them for a couple years but can't immediately go back because I need to be re-referred which can take awhile due to waitlists. But I can see my GP (in person or phone call) very quickly if needed and all free. I had a serious issue not long ago and got seen in Urgent Care in a couple hours (avoided ER), sent to specialist next day, and got all the testing done quite quickly and then treated - less than a week. No cost. Might have been a bit quicker in a pay system but my life wasn't threatened and I didn't have to worry about whether or not it would be covered by my insurance or what the copay would be. I know people who complain about the slowness of non life threating issues but they always have the option of paying for care - they just need to leave Canada, and some do. I have a relative who was ticked that the surgeon he saw wouldn't recommend an operation so he went to the US and paid to have it done only to find that it didn't really solve his problem (just like his 'idiot' Canadian doc had said) and he was now out a load of money and still had a chronic issue. For life threatening issues, all my family and friends have had timely & free service. An aunt went into ER 2 weeks ago for severe stomach pain. Got a CT and was into surgery a day later. Five days in hosptial and she's now recovering at home with occassional health nurse visits. No charge. Didn't even have to pay for most of her medication costs because they were mostly covered under Pharmacare.

You have a problem, say an accident, even one you are yourself to blame.

You or someone else calls an ambulance, you go to the hospital, you get help, then you go home and life continues.

The total absence of problems and even thinking about cost is very much quality of life and means smaller problems get fixed before they get really expensive for you and in effect for society.

Netherlands

Good, I'd pay my "eigen risico" of a few hundred EUR - presuming I didn't already spend it before then - but it's slowly getting worse due to mass-migration (3x the historic percentage-points of the total population; that's over 100k added on a population of 18 mil, even when that should be closer to 30k instead, historically speaking).

dental seems insanely expensive even with free or subsidized healthcare. as private pratices dont take state subsidized like medi-caid. at least most dont, the onlys that did are pretty like questionable ones or low quality/soso. ive seen the dental school.clinics, waiting time is quite a while since its low cost. if you have a immediate issue like pain, abscess, broken tooth you really cant afford to wait weeks to get on-boarding to get seen in the first appointment in most cases, since its a student based dental school, they have holidays and midterms/finals so all those days are blocked out for them. right now the ACA helps people with subsidies, but you have to shop around which fits your needs(if you need alot of visits, appts, medication you have to cough up more per month)

It is great. A dream if u will. FANTASTIC. I laugh at americans all the time together with the rest of the developed world

Long hours in emergency waiting room. Like you’re waiting for half a day. At least