"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."
this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2026
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$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.
--
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.
Is osteopathy not just a cheaper MD that's slightly easier to get into over there? Here in the US it's basically the same but with like one class added that's basically vestigial at this point. Here we may as well just eliminate the remaining difference and make the schools the same.
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.
We have free doctor visits and everyone I know still doesn't want to go there, unless the pain is getting really bad. I would say everyone hates doctor visits.
No, I definitely know of some people that go often only to be told that it's just a cold or similar and that they just need to rest a few days. Not most people, but a few do overuse regular consultations, so it does make sense to have some system in place to reduce that problem (nominal charges are a valid approach here).
If I’m talking to a doctor over a cold, it’s solely because work is requiring a doctor’s note.
At least my current workplace has a contract with a free telehealth service, so I can use that instead of clogging up an in-person doctors’ office just to get a stupid piece of paper that means, “Your employee isn’t lying.”
Which is fine. It's just some people do clog up the normal system with minor things. I especially see this with people for whom going to an appointment is no inconvenience (no work, so the retired anf nervous mothers, etc.). The minor charge helps avoid a situation in which they have an outsized effect on health care expenditures for the state.
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.