The conversations are amazing
this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
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Eh... as someone living in western Europe, I can't say it's free. I would say that it's subsidized at most. We still have to pay a part of our healthcare, we can get a private health insurance to complete the government coverage, but it's still not enough to cover all of it.
Mental health isn't covered at all, ophtalmology barely (still gotta pay 200€ for a pair of glasses, after public + private coverage), dental only the very basic is covered...
It's very heterogenous. I've lived in a few countries in the EU, the NL for example gets you even mental health for 150 a month for the whole deal. And sick leave is unlimited and self-reporting.
I got my lenses for a realistic amount (~8€), but the frames are (were) expensive af. That's mostly on Luxottica (and the state not reigning her in).
Although, that was years ago, way before "covid-induced" inflation, and the healthcare system is being dismantled bit-by-bit for a very long time, so I don't doubt lenses got at least 3-5x more expensive in the meantime.
Just out of curiosity, which country?
The glasses part sounds similar to Germany. I‘m pretty near sighted (-4.25-ish diopters) and without glasses I‘m more or less useless. Can’t focus on things beyond like 20cm from my face. Can’t read shit that isn’t either that close or ginormous.
According to German public insurance, I’m not blind enough for them to subsidize my glasses, let alone pay for them outright.
To be fair, you can get glasses somewhat cheaply for sub 100€ if you’re not too picky about frames or high quality lenses with good coating but still. At least that much should be covered by insurance at the point where you aren’t allowed to operate a vehicle without glasses anymore, imo.
Also, I don’t wanna shit on German public insurance too much because so far I’ve never had to pay a penny for any doctor’s appointment and necessary medications have been free as well. Also, mental health is covered, at least when it’s deemed necessary aka you‘ve been diagnosed with a mental illness, so maybe the commenter above isn’t from here.
Yup, Europe is pretty heterogeneous
That description matches where I live, Belgium
As the screenshot shows, in China some things also seem to require a copay.