“Norwegian hospitals are free though. I was just surprised the first time I learned Norwegians pay at all to visit the doctor because I assumed we had the same system.”
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Plot twist, the American didn’t even hear the conversation. He just showed up violent and obnoxious.
Is this the new pol balls?
$17 USD
seems a bit steep, but I assume it’s to keep it affordable but not used willy nilly
We have a system like that in Sweden too. The patient fee differs from region to region and it’s generally quite small. You’re still required to pay it if you book a visit and don’t show up.
I think it is essentially to deter unnecessary visits.
Youth do not pay at all. There’s also a high cost protection so if you end up paying a certain sum, then you’re given a free card and any subsequent costs for that year are nulled. That includes most anything, including medication, but not dental care.
Currently that sum is 1450 crowns, about $150USD.
There is some push to have dental care fall under the same rules.
As a Dane, I beg to differ. I think its essential that it’s free to visit the doctor, to not deter necessary visits.
I concur. I grew up in poverty and even though the sum isn’t particularly large for me today, thinking of the economic situation I grew up in every little bit counts.
Sure kids don’t pay, but having a sick parent in poverty is not great.
There’s a line, and I don’t know where it is. I’d very much rather someone go who didn’t need it than the other way, but medical care is to some extent a finite resource that can be over utilized.
Maybe the answer is to incentivise using it correctly instead of penalizing using it incorrectly. Get a check for showing up to or giving proper cancellation notice for all appointments, getting your regular checkups and stuff like that. Appropriate use of whatever we’re calling non-emergency walk in clinics. (At least where I am, your doctor has a lead time before appointments, and the emergency room is more geared towards immediate specialized care. The clinics are designed for “let’s give that sprained ankle a double check and pop a stich in that gouge”. Routine care that shouldn’t wait)
Just to complete the comic. I’m in the US. I spend about $90 on a regular yearly checkup. Spent $218 to get seen to get something prescribed for a three week cough I had that was getting worse (plus another $68 or so for the meds themselves).
Several of my friends are jealous of my health insurance because I’ve got the good one that covers more. Please shoot me.
I called 911 and went to hospital, unable to stand and uncontrollable vomiting black sludge with white specs in it, imagine over-used engine oil with seaseme seeds mixed in. Turns out my liver was leaking into my gi track. 43k bill from hospital, 1200 from ambulance to drive 1 mile, combined 3k from various doctors, 8k for all the tests they ran. Yes all separate bills. I was there for 3 days. That’s about a total of 55k in bills for 3 days…
Even if the 25 dollar an hour minimum wage bill passed, and I worked full time for minimum wage with no other expenses(no food, no rent, no gas, no nothing) I still couldn’t pay it in a year(yearly pay at 25 an hour is 52k a year).
I was gonna complain about my $4k bill for a heart checkup, but uh… you win.
Good news is the hospital bill included free meals and once I was cleared for normal diet it was decent food…
And how much a month is your health insurance?
The real hidden cost
I want to say $300? I haven’t looked in forever since it gets auto deducted from my check. Not like I can reduce it much. That does also include my wife too at least.
Can we shoot those in charge of the absurd prices instead? All you did was luck out, but you’re still one of us.
We don’t do regular yearly checkups in Sweden.
At a certain point when you reach a particular age or if you are at risk for something, that may change, but the average person doesn’t do yearly checkups.
You should though. Most ages would benefit even if only from a quick opportunity to ask about anything that might have come up plus the chance for some bloodwork to verify nothing obvious is abnormal. Prevention is way better than getting to a problem when it’s already serious, and preventative checks can spot a lot of things (liver issues, some cancers, metabolic problems, etc.).
Preventative checks are used in Sweden where there’s evidence for their efficacy - for example, mammograms for all women over 40, screening for colorectal cancer for everyone over 60, etc.
It’s just that evidence for efficacy is the bar that each screening has to clear, and general yearly health checkups did not clear that bar.
As far as I understand, yearly general health checkups aren’t that effective at catching things. That at least seems to be the basis for why we don’t have them. One meta-analysis I found referenced was this one published in the BMJ.
That isn’t to say that people don’t get regular checkups here. Depending on your medical history, your age, and your potential for particular problems, there will be regular specific health checks. If a particular group of people are more likely to be affected with a particular condition, then said group will be called for checks.
You can absolutely do regular yearly health checkups, but that’s generally done by private clinics, and you pay for that yourself.
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I have very mixed feelings about our healthcare system. On one hand it works well for the most part, but there are obviously some horror stories making the rounds. There are also some really questionable practices, for example you can get a referral to a chiropractor. Everyone knows that’s bunk science. At best chiropractors are con artists and at worst they’re butchers.
Yeah, we really need to remove chiropractors and osteopathic practitioners from public systems.
I hate it here so much
We tried something like that in germany for a while, then it was deemed ineffective and got reverted. Any flat fee also has the usual issue of disproportionately affecting poor people - 150€ a year (ik you used usd but close enough) isn’t a lot for me, but for some people it can be more than they can afford.
Japan could use that. Ambulances are free and so they sometimes get overused because old people call them at the drop of a hat. But I got a tooth filled for ￥1700 (less than 20 USD) so they’re doing something right.
That is about 3x what we pay in Belgium. So much!
4 euro remgeld, life is good
It is the only thing we pay for healthcare wise, unless it’s teeth or eyes, that is privatised. We have started a decline that should be more warning than inspiration.
In France, we used to be at the top, now I need to wait 6 months to see a lung specialist because we lack of doctor (yeah teaching 3000 doctors per year in the 90’s was a brilliant idea), we pay ~30€ and get 19€ refunded for a basic general consultation. If you want more, you need a fucking insurance. I remember spending a night in children ER waiting more than 4 hours to have an asthma attack handled because the hospital was empty. Privatization is the way to speed run turning anything into a fucking disaster.
Some parties want more privatised healthcare here in Norway as well, so that we could all enjoy more individual agony.
This is ridiculous, usa kid wouldnt even acknowledge the other kids exist.
More like no usa kid at all due to drinking raw milk and skipping the measles vax
Health is a commodity. Think about that. Fucking Americans. I live in the US. We have commodified health.
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Also in the most communist country, healthcare would be subject to some market forces. Namely: how many sick people you have versus how many doctors you have. You can affect these with central planning somewhat, but not a lot. Unless you kill all the sick people of course.
Free market could fix that if properly applied. Also public health care could fix that if properly applied (i.e. decorrupted, modernized and funded so much that taxes would be amazing).
Everything has been commodified; housing, food. The line must go up.
Call me when that line is the number of 1%-ers being dragged into the streets and beaten.
Hear, Hear!
It was done long before me or you had any say in it.
Hut yeah its fucked up.
“Europeans pay for health care. Americans pay for health insurance.”
By American standards, I have extremely good health insurance through my wife’s workplace. We still have to pay $25 per doctor visit on top of paying every month for the insurance.
Ignorant Norwegian here, but that sounds extremely good for US standards, happy for you for that. Out of curiosity, how much is paid monthly for that? And what would a broken leg and an ambulance to the hospital cost?
Ambulance rides cost a minimum of 1k USD. If you are not admitted to the hospital then it is not covered. If you are admitted then all costs ambulance and care normally has a 500$ copay and then you pay 20% or less depending on the insurance.
A broken leg that requires immediate surgery is something to admit. Just a cast is urgent care only, so you probably are S.O.L.
This is based on my experience with multiple insurances, there are tonnes of options, so I’m sure someone else would say it is different for them.
Wow.
For my family of four I was paying half of $2400 per month (my employer paid the other half) for a very good PPO plan (meaning I could choose my own doctors) that had a $25 copay for doctor visits and no copay for medications after I met the $500 per person pharmacy deductible. That was up until I was laid off, then I had to pay for all of it until my COBRA coverage ended.
That is more than I pay in taxes (in Norway). And I have a pretty decent income.
I have an average pay, and the monthly $2400 is almost double my taxes alone.
For a family of 4 insurance is about 3k/month split between employer and employee. The amount that would cost is largely unknowable. My insurance has a $500 deductible, so I would definitely pay at least that much, probably more. After that insurance would cover 80-90% of the cost until an out of pocket maximum, which is 3k/person or 6k/family for me. A final cost around 1k would probably be a good deal, and up to 4-5k could happen depending on out of network fuckery.
160 kronars is a lot, its not fair.
Its about £14, honestly not bad compared to most of the world.
About the price of a baguette at Gardermoen?
$17.14 USD at the time I checked.
Has been less than 16 USD for the last 15 years until Iran. So sad way to cut inflation, but yay.
Do they not practice “free card” in Norway? if you spend more than 230 American zlotty, the rest is free?
Yes, something like that.
Things that are counted as emergency is also free.
Kids up to 16 also go for free
As an American, I think the Dane has a point. Beating us is a really low bar
Get off your ass and do something.
That’s too much to ask an American.
Correct. Absolute cowards.
The joke has been done to death, but I love the art style!
SATW is a classic, and excellent. https://satwcomic.com/
₹5 in Kerala. Although you have to pay for meds yourself
Doesn’t processing 5 rupees cost more than the fee itself?
