In Denmark its paid through taxes.

I still have to pay to visit the dentist though, which can be quite expensive.

Regular doctors visits are free, but if youre refered to some specialist, like… i had an issue with my knee, i was directed to some therapeutic pro. That cost me like 20 euros per visit. However, a friend of mine had to visit an eye doctor which was also free.

And medicine also is self paid, like antibiotics or whatever. Its rarely super expensive though.

But i when my kid was born we had no expenses at all. His mother had to stay (with him) for 2 days at the hospital and while there she had full free access to a stocked fridge, stuff for the baby (diapers etc) and all that jazz.

Ive not heard of anyone having other expenses either, like cancer treatments or getting a broken arm fixed

In Poland, it doesn’t. They just steal our money without anything in return you have to wait for years to get into surgery what you pay taxes for.

I’ll start with the German system. Here you are either automatically insured in one of the public insurances (there are many), which marginally differ in their cost (think single digit euro differences) and have to cover basically the same procedures. If one reaches a certain income level, being privately insured is possible.

If you are publicly insured, you wont see most costs, as these are directly handled between your insurer and the doctor/hospital. For some medications and procedures there are co-pays that are flat fees (5 Eur for Medications, …).

Access to specialists mostly need a referral from your family doctor.

In private insurance, often you yourself will be billed and you will need to hand this to your insurance company.

The good side is that in most common situations I have never needed to worry about cost in public insurance, wait times for referrals can be very long and understanding what you need to get certain care can be very difficult. Private insurance often has better payment schemes for providers and less artificial limits on number of patients or which doctor is able to provide services, so access to most care is faster and more widely available.

In Malaysia, you’re treatment are mostly covered by the goverment through subsidies. You usually pay a percentage of the treatment cost. The only exception is cosmetic surgery and certain high end medications, i think. Despite that, there are still people that is unable to pay the fee and the goverment still provide some kind of monetary support or the public hospital helps by paying the remaining fee using available fund. As a result, there are long waiting time for treatment and the public hospital generally overcrowded and healthcare workers were overworked. Thus, most of our specialist or other healthcare workers would escape this hell hole for a much better paying job in private sector or in other country.

UK here. Everything is free at point of use (paid via taxes) except prescriptions. It’s around £10 per item. But they are free if you have certain long term health conditions, are pregnant etc.

To see a specialist your doctor writes a letter and they contact you.