PolyPassport recently profiled a Texan woman and her family’s journey from the US to France in search of more affordable healthcare and saner politics. They had EU passports on the basis of ancestry.
It reinforces a lot of the stereotypes we have about healthcare in Europe, particularly on pricing and access overall. Cataract surgery cost her some 300 EUR (!) and her daughter receives free prosthetics every two years.
But her story does dispel the notion that anyone, anywhere can just walk into an EU hospital and get treated—including EU citizens. That’s consistent with my own experience. I’ve lived in a few EU countries and certainly paid less for often high-quality care than in the US. But I never found it to be straightforward or necessarily leagues better than equivalent systems, say, in Asia. Like the woman in the article, I also missed speaking to providers in my native language about ailments that can’t often be conveyed with an A2 level proficiency! :)
It got me thinking about the trade-offs we face when chasing healthcare (or anything really) abroad. It’s about balancing the good with the not-so-good and making the most of our choices wherever we go.
Food for thought and a point discussion.
I think I prefer my Switzerland, though it is expensive for a family. Accessibility in a major city is huge as you can often get GPs or specialists in a more than reasonable wait time. We do pay for mandatory insurance, which is expensive (and going up in 2024!) though pretty streamlined in a Phone app for our insurance and in English. Many young techies complain about the premiums every month though, and wish for cheaper health care, and I agree that it’s not prorated for poorer people which is a shame and the old retirees get a lot of benefits for their CHF. Controversial, but I think you do get better care in the US, but I don’t like the surprise billing even outlawed, somehow seems to squeak in and give you sticker shock for a visit to the hospital or doctor’s office. It is cheaper in CH, but not the utopia I think everyone wants…free quality healthcare in English.
Last year I added my health insurance with the taxes every year, and it’s a pretty good value for a family.