in holland taxes cost like 60-70% of your income, but the education system, hesalthcare, infrastructure etc are REALLY good.

Live in Canada and it's great. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for Hungary.

Indeed, I've only had good experiences with it but my aunty was literally on deaths-door because she got blood-posioning at the hospital; don't know how much they got but they've got two, 2-week trips to Dubia this year, bought another horse I believe, bought and completely refurbished their sons and daughter-in-laws house among other things - I guess she was literally on the verge of death so it must have been a lot (it was only to remove some damn gaul stones too).

****! That's an expensive B&B

Even if you have health insurance in the US, there is no guarantee it will be covered. Healthcare is a minefield of varying prices for services, depending on your health, financial, and insured status. Some procedures, especially in regards to women's healthcare, are being legislated as illegal. Many people do without healthcare, and visit emergency rooms and urgent care clinics only when their health declines dangerously. Doctors in high risk fields like neuro, prenatal, and neonatal surgery who cannot afford malpractice insurance fled the state. There is no national physican registry, but there soon will be. One can conceieveably be treated unknowingly by a bad doctor who lost his liscence in another state, and still be practicing medicine.
US healthcare lags far behind that of other developed nations, and I fear it will continue to decline.

and yes, as Jeffredo pointed out, politics often plays too much of a role in deciding the outcome.
Too often scientific fact is overlooked, too often the health and health care options of citizens are used as a barganing chip, or to further some politican's career.

I don't have much experience from hospitals... but it's mostly free here 15-25 dollars for a normal visit. And if it's something serious, I don't think you have to pay anything at all.

Health Care here is free, per say. I only put a few pounds towards it through National Insurance.
It's supposed to be great, but really it's not, it's a money sink hole and caters mainly as a life waster from alkies and junkies as they constantly 'recover' there and then [censored] up again just to be treated again and again. It runs up billions a year, I've put what must be ￡2000 into it now and I've never used any NHS care services at all so as far as I see it it's a waste of money.

Health Care in Japan, where I have lived since 1975, is good and available to all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_system_in_Japan

I stayed with my union's health program for two years after retiring (the maximum allowed) and then switched to the National Health Care System. My health care payments are based on my income.

I think it's a pretty good system, fair, comprehensive, with good quality.

Its a business right?

Reminds me about (some to all) educational institutions here. They are a place of business, first.

They also set quotas for Med schools inputs and outputs. Its aggressively monitored and enforced, for some reason. I can understand cultural/ethnicquotas. But the low total possible/allowable docs/yr input/output doesn't make sense.. well it does.. I just don't understand why not enough of general pop cares. Maybe a lack of knowledge/info?

And since were on the topic.. anyone here still deciding on a school program.. get into pharmaceuticals. Apparently its the most recession proof field/industry. Everyone needs drugs, I guess, so I've heard.

Also, apparently, fems were able to go to Med school here becausee of dads who used their power to make their daughters happy. Apparently.

Its the same here in NZ, we have ACC for all citizens to cover most medical costs.

Whoops, I just noticed Solid_moose's post.

I'm just being picky as usual, but it did cost a penny and more. The difference is that you may not have paid for it yourself, if you've never paid any taxes yourself that is, but medical supplies don't just pop out of nowhere if you have tax-funded health care, nor do surgeons suddenly start to work for free. I could have assumed you meant to say "and none of it cost us a penny", had you not mentioned your father who must be old enough to have payed taxes for a while(since I'm going to assume from the start he's an honest and hard-working citizen).

The point he was making is that he wasn't then presented with an enormous bill for medical costs. Yes, it needs to be paid for somehow and it does consume a lot of money, but at least that way one doesn't have their illness compounded by being stung for huge expenses they can ill afford or be left to argue with their insurance company (that's not to say that arguments never happen with the NHS's equivalent people, but having done both, it's still not as bad overall.)

It is a well known fact that the USA has terrible social services.

The good thing -I think- about our system is that a lot of the responcibility in the initial screening comes down to the general practitioner, my family doctor.


he makes house calls.


I think that a comprehensive health care system in whatever country or political climate needs to start with reinstating the community pillar that is the family doctor.. he doesn't earn a [censored]load of money like the other fancy pants specialist doctors, ends up bringing a lot of local babies into the world, and watches the elderly take their last breaths of their current existence, and treats a lifetime of cut, bruises, nose, ear throat aches and the occasion near-broken leg of a six year old who fell off his bike. -who's fine, btw. screamed like a stuck pig for an hour, but otherwise fine

I also think it's a bad idea that pharmaceutical companies can market their good directly to physicians and hospitals.. if there were regional three day conventions where the companies could punt their goods it would level the playing field maybe.. dunno rightly about that one though.. it's a sticky one when and where corporations are involved..

That's one good thing about our system in NZ, we have a pharmaceutical agency called Pharmac which controls which drugs are subsidized based on efficacy rather than marketing.

We have the National Institute of Clinical Excellence in the UK whose job is supposedly the same thing but there've been a lot of accusations that its inclination to save money rather than offer "clinical excellence" is given undue priority.

I just can't see the US -for instance- setting up a ministry of drugs..

..on second thought, erm... ahh.. uhh.

..

Yeah, I can totally see that happening some day

i used to live in NZ, until two and a half years ago, their system was good

It's free here in the UK but from personal experience of being turfed in and out of hospital several times each year its not perfect. Long waiting times and sometimes the staff are unhelpful but they are at least trying to make do.

From what I understand, and how I've been advised (taught, if u want), the most effective way to use our system is through a family doctor.

Family Doctor -> Hospital
Family Doctor -> Specialist
Family Doctor -> Mental Health Doctors

If its something very serious,

Family Doctor + other doctors/family doctors + own research -> whatever you need to or feel to do.

Also, if we don't have the means to care for you here, you can go to another country for it. Most of the US is preferred due too their skillz there. I don't know the exact rules, but its a possibility. Also, some visitors are allowed health care, I remember one type of visitor is a clergyman. Not sure if its been changed.
------------------------
What about majority insurance policies in ttyhe US, what do they cover when it comes to mental health?

I remember I broke a bone once in the US. After insurance it still cost a few hundred dollars.

Denmark has free healthcare too. School and collage is also free, the only education institude you have to pay for is university.

BUT it comes with a price. We have the highest taxes in the whole world. Im not lying to you, but we have to pay 44% to taxes every freaking month.

44%!......

It's almost impossible to answer that question. It comes down to your individual policy. The one I have does cover mental health, I have a co-pay for every visit and I'm allowed I think 24 visits in a year, but there are some policies that don't cover it at all or that you have to pay extra to have covered. Same goes for visual and dental insurance. (Also, strangely enough, all of my coverage is under one policy but it's paid through different companies. Don't ask me why.)

Edit: And I'm not sure you can even say there is a "majority" when it comes to what policies cover and don't. They're so varied based on every factor known to man.

The NHS is good because its free, but the service is a lot less that satisfactory.

I've had a bit of a weird experience with the NHS. When I was born, due to some weird genetics in our family, I couldn't speak or breathe normally due to the shape of my mouth. While we had to pay to have the shape normalized, the speech therapy (including some new ground-breaking electrophotograpic thingy) in on the NHS. But for normal stuff they've been fine.

A friend of my Dad's who lived in the US lost his job about a month before his wife was due to give birth and therefore they couldn't get any insurance. Therefore, they ended up staying at our house, based on the fact the NHS couldn't do anything about a 999 call of "My wife's giving birth" followed by them refusing to say who they were so that they couldn't somehow be charged. Fun times.

Anyone in Canadia who doesn't have a photo on their health card? I don't. I still have my old one.

I always see people walk around with their health card, SIN(social insurance) card, birth certificate, etc. I dunno.. I don't think we need to walk around with that stuff here. If you need medical attention, no ones gonna deny you. For me, I don't have it readily available so I don't loose it. I like my picture less health card. If I were to loose it I'd have to hop into the new system, and have to get it renewed every few yrs. I got a tip from someone not to get a new card lololo. I was living gout of country when they implemented new system. But its not mandatory. Some receptionists get pissed because I don't have the new one, but why should they care.. they're getting paid.. no one made them get the new cards.