Depends on the implementation. Every single EU country does it slightly different. Here in Romania it’s 100% paid for via taxation, the only thing you have to pay out of pocket for is heavily subsidized medication if it’s been prescribed, and wait times are actually pretty ok.
The downside is we don’t have any of the fancy new toys in any state-owned hospital due to a lack of funding, which means more complex surgeries are riskier, the latest and greatest medicine doesn’t exist here and Romanian doctors have to rely more on the basics.
In the UK they sometimes send you to private hospitals for routine stuff, hip replacements, cataract surgery, and then just pay for it themselves and only the complicated surgeries are done by NHS staff.
Depends on the implementation. Every single EU country does it slightly different. Here in Romania it’s 100% paid for via taxation, the only thing you have to pay out of pocket for is heavily subsidized medication if it’s been prescribed, and wait times are actually pretty ok.
The downside is we don’t have any of the fancy new toys in any state-owned hospital due to a lack of funding, which means more complex surgeries are riskier, the latest and greatest medicine doesn’t exist here and Romanian doctors have to rely more on the basics.
It’s all trade-offs.
In the UK they sometimes send you to private hospitals for routine stuff, hip replacements, cataract surgery, and then just pay for it themselves and only the complicated surgeries are done by NHS staff.