As an American I’m curious what it’s like if you need to go to the doctor and how much you pay from say a broken arm to general checkup. Also list what country please
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.
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.
Canada
Conservative governments are trying to kill universal healthcare across the country and where they have privatized it, it does not produce better outcomes, it just costs more.
The big difference from US care, aside from costs, is that Canada does not waste money on a plethora of pointless testing. When testing is required, it is prioritized which upsets people who are addicted to seeing doctors and insist on tests they don’t need. The system is heavily abused by a few people.
One patient in Quebec racked up 362 visits in one year.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/health/article/one-quebecer-saw-a-family-doctor-362-times-in-a-year/
As someone else mentioned the current government is trying to make things worse so we can have American style hearth care.
Remember: this guy is the harm-reduction candidate. Poliestre would welcome American-style Mercenary healthcare for the country, like it is in Edmonton, demolishing what we have now for his rich friends.
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
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
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.
Free? That’s hardly free. I pay monthly NHS and barely get appointments. R.I.P, people with conditions that need to be diagnosed early.
Accidents? Yeah, you get help immediately. Other conditions? You better go private.
Whinge more.
Let me know when you have to decide between an ambulance ride or three rent.
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.
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.
MAGA Doug Ford and Danielle Smith.
We’ve also got luxury health for our teeth only. Its not like we need them to eat properly and its not like we need to do that daily.
I’ve spent thousands of dollars of government money for digestive issues that I’m fairly confident link back to the fact that my teeth only make contact in 4 places, but the cabal of dentists and orthodontists keep teeth payable and I can’t afford $10k for braces that I (who am not a medical professional) think I need, but that orthodontists (who, in this country are licensed tooth renovation salespeople) think they could give me nicer looking teeth for.
I agree to an extent that cosmetic medicine doesn’t need to be covered, but there’s no option for me to get my teeth medically corrected so I can eat properly, or, and what may be my biggest gripe, that I have a medical practitioner that wants to get me out of the healthcare system rather than sell me a fucking smile.
This is what the US is doing with other successful public services, like our postal service, social safety services, along with our limited public insurance options. I feel like the goal of this tactic generally needs to be shouted out, taught, put on billboards for a decade, because it just keeps working for right-wing saboteurs in so many situations
Reagan was open about “starve the beast,” and many Republicans literally run on the idea.
These people are so inundated with constant propaganda that they believe they want this.
This isn’t happening behind the right’s back, they are cheering it on
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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.
we pay national insurance, a fixed percentage of income
With no limits? One of the many problems with the us system is we don’t do this.
There are some limits to it, and ways around it for the rich (as per usual ☹️).
The cost still mostly scales with your income, rather than how much care you need.
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.
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.
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
Wait times suck in the US, too. I snapped my collarbone when I fell off my bike. It was gnarly. I waited in the waiting room for three hours to get a bed in the hallway then I waited another another two hours to see her my first x-ray. Between waiting for each nurse or PA, I was there for 9 hours. And during that time all they did was take some x-rays, told me my collar bone was really fucking broken and scubbed but or if my wounds. I was sent home considerably uncomfortable. I had to wait a week to see a doctor to assess my collar bone and another week have the surgery. It sucked
Here’s another fun example: I started having chronic nonstop migraines a few years ago. After a couple very long months of back and forth with my primary care, I finally got a referral to neurology, but I had to wait over a month for them to contact me. Even after they finally contacted me I had to wait EIGHT MONTHS to finally have a video appointment.
I came into this thread to speak about wait times too, but you said it much better than I could have. Thank you :)
You are very welcome.
We need to acknowledge the problems if we want to address them.
The system isn’t perfect, but it does (generally) have your back when you get sick
Healthcare is one of, if not THE most important, valuable and defining parts about being Canadian. Right alongside being polite and friendly, in my opinion.
…unfortunately, the shitheads know this too, hence the attacks on public healthcare. It will not work tho, as the reptile people hate each other and cannot concieve of even small sacrifices to help others, and they cannot understand liking others either.
Canadians like each other, have a great thing going, and know it.
Stay strong hosers
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).
I think some mental health can be covered as well but the waitlists are insane, like 2-3 years in my province.
Trade off: waiting hours to almost have a day in the emergency waiting room.
Months if a year to get a therapist.
That’s not different in private healthcare.
Also, if you have to wait hours, then you shouldn’t be in ER. The triage system prioritizes care.
Not necessarily. Some years back my daughter attended college at U Guelph (Ontario, Canada), we lived in Ohio, USA. She was home for a summer break when a health issue came up needing an appointment with a specialist. In Ohio, with our insurance (considered pretty good in USA terms) she was unable to get an appointment any sooner than more than a month after she had to return to college. So she went back to Guelph. And had an appointment within a week there! Waiting times in USA under almost any current insurance for more than seeing a nurse are also outrageously long.
So because it doesn’t affect you personally you don’t see the problem. Meanwhile a lot of first nations are abandoned.
waiting hours to almost have a day in the emergency waiting room.
I think if you’re waiting that long in the emergency room, you might be in the wrong place. Or unlucky. And/or in a place that’s understaffed and underfunded.
Most emergencies can’t wait an entire day.
There are two ways to get a doctor faster.
The first is to increase the supply of doctors: more doctors, more nurses, more beds in hospitals, more clinics, more MRI machines. Any government with a public healthcare system can do this at any time by allocating more funds to the public healthcare system, either increasing the taxes people pay, or diverting tax money from something else. If a country isn’t bankrupt and isn’t doing this, it’s a choice.
The second way is to have private clinics that use money as a way to skip triage. To allow wealthy people to pay their way ahead of poor people to the same small supply of doctors. This is the way most people who rail against public healthcare see the solution going, but the part they don’t say out loud is “I want poor people to suffer more so I can suffer less”. Because that’s what that solution is, it’s what it boils down to, but for some reason saying “I want to sell my suffering to the desperate” makes it feel less fun.
The myth that you get faster care or better care in a private clinic has got to stop.
What you get is a lot of unnecessary testing to drive up the billing.
You keep posting this like it’s a gotcha to universal healthcare, but it’s really not. I worked in an ER here in the US in an area with a population of roughly 165,000 so nowhere near metro levels. Our wait times are on average 8-12 hours, depending on what you wanted to be seen for. Sometimes longer during busy periods, like summer months or holidays. And you pay thousands to be seen.
Which is better, waiting 12 hours and being treated for no outstanding cost regardless of the outcome, or waiting 12 hours and then paying thousands / tens of thousands for the same treatment?
Neither is good. Fix it.
Keep screaming into the void about everything being awful and demanding random internet strangers develop completely perfect and personalized healthcare just for you, I’m sure it’ll help.
That is an entirely separate problem that has nothing to do with if your country has universal Healthcare or privatized Healthcare. Places with private Healthcare can have just as long wait times, and places with universal Healthcare can have short wait times. Only the people trying to corrupt a system say that it will fix the wait times, don’t believe them.
And if you’re first nations: people like you get to talk over the problem.
Go canada.
What is a person like me?
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.
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 think you’ve been in Denmark for to long hehe.
It’s $350/year these days.
Still very good though, and hospitals are usually free.After giving birth a few years ago, the only cost was ish $30 in parking for two days.
Yeah, I think you’re right! 7.5 years is quite a long time… But too long, considering the inflation in Norway? It’s been fun spending my Danish kroner in Norway - it’s like it all is 40% off.
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.
