Can you pay for private dentists, or similar, if you need more immediate service? And is the wait similar for major things like cancer, brain tutor, or heart surgery?
If you need immediate service, you get to a fast track queue and can get free dentist care on the same day. If it's non-acute, you can go to a private clinic which is highly subsidized but does costs some money. But nothing like in the US.
> And is the wait similar for major things like cancer, brain tutor, or heart surgery
If you have serious acute illness, you will not be stuck in a queue. Such a situation would probably be grounds to a lawsuit.
Also, just as a sidenote, if you have no income other than governmental income support, Kela will pay these fees. So it is free for those who do not have the income to pay for it.
The point is, it's absolutely not true that health care in Finland or the rest of Scandinavia is anywhere near as good as popularly imagined by Americans or even by many Scandinavians themselves. Anyone who moves to Scandinavia thinking the high taxes will give complete access to instant top notch treatment in case of cancer or many other conditions will have been straight up misled and deceived.
Pointing that out doesn't imply thinking US health care is preferable or better - I certainly don't.
If you want top notch anything, it's pretty obvious that the privilege is accessible only to billionaires. There's no roof on how much money you can spend on any service. The point of the public health care system is that a basic level of care is guaranteed to everyone, not to provide the most opulent service that money can buy.
[0] https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/is-finland-part-of-scand...
The healthcare system here is pretty comparable to the other Nordic countries, although there are some differences. The quality of care depends a lot on your particular health issues and the place you live, though.
There are sometimes investigative journalism of malpractice cases in the media, but that happens on the private sector too. Yes, many people are often frustrated when they have to wait for their non-acute check up times, but "people dying in queues" as something that would be normal here in Helsinki is a total myth.
As someone who has experience both the US system and a universal system, there are things you get in the US system (if you have insurance) that you won't get in other systems.
Can you elaborate?
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2...
Never heard of anyone dying waiting for public treatment here in Finland. If you have some life threatening issue you will get treatment right away.
I would say the only one coming anywhere close to that here is the somewhat bad access to mental healthcare that can end up in suicide if left untreated. But based on the amount of homeless people with severe mental illness on the streets of America I don't think things are better there (though beating USA in health care is a really low bar)
Yes if you have some non-urgent problem you might have to wait a few months in the public health care (if you have the money/insurance you can go to the private sector)
So, if your condition won't get worse in a few weeks/months, you wait, and get the free healthcare when they have time (within some legal limits). They'll be too busy working on the more acute cases while you're waiting.
You can certainly pay for your own dentist visits. I do - not because the waiting lines (I could just book my annual check at the same time each year and get the visit roughly annually) - but because I trust my dentist, and I want the same person to do my teeth each time. Most people do, I think, because public dentistry services weren't included for adults for decades until 2000's or so. So, you would get public dentists till you're 18 and then pay for your private dentist after that. That actually worked pretty well in its time but now that everyone is allowed public dentist visits there are queues.
You can pay to see a medical doctor as well. There's a large number of private medical clinics that will take you in the very same day. Some people use their own money to buy that service but most commonly people use these via their employer's healthcare benefit or via private insurance. For example, if you have kids you can buy them a private insurance for 150-200€ per kid per year and should they acutely need a doctor you can just take them to any private clinic instead of waiting in the emergency reception in a public healthcare center or hospital. But if it's something really acute you'd be taken in anyway, so many people will just use the public service.
No.
For serious illness or acute accident that needs hospitalization, the public health care is excellent and fast. And it won't bankrupt you, even for the most demanding medical care (usually you pay small flat fee for every day you're hospitalized).
For non-urgent doctor's visits and routine dental care, not so much. Wait times can be long and the system can be quite frustrating. It's a bit better for children.
Most employers in tech sector (and most white collar work, even some blue collar work) will have additional health care benefits that will get you your doctor's or dentist's appointment faster from a private health care provider. You can get insurance or pay out of pocket too.
There is absolutely no issue if your issue is acute or serious with the public healthcare. But as mentioned, if your issue is complicated (e.g. i have an undiagnosed hip issue for a year) it takes ages to get scans and such.
The major thing beyond that perception though is you get a ton of doctors offices who work like mills, they try to get as many patients as possible through each day as possible. Even 'family doctors' as a opposed to 'walk-in clinics' where you don't need to be a 'member' with a specific doctor.
It's because in Canada the get paid for 15 minute (or optionally 30min) chunks regardless if they saw you for 2minutes or 15 minutes. So there's always this underlying pressure to get you out the door.
You have to learn to really pressure them to take your conditions seriously and take them time to review your condition.
Don't get me wrong though, I'm otherwise a die hard capitalist for most areas and still think that public health insurance (not hospitals or doctors) is the moral and better choice. Healthcare insurance lacks many benefits of a market and places like the US meddle with them to death anyway where they aren't true markets, so they might as well be public. Just like prisons, some things should be run by the state, just very few things.
Then I moved to CA and got health insurance from work, using UCLA health as my main network.
It's the exact same. I go to see my PCP and she's literally trying to just go through lists of things, is routinely late, and response to 90% of issues is a recommendation to go to another doctor.
Literally the exact same experience.
That doesn't match my experience. Several of my classmates who went to major Canadian medical schools also had offers from "top" US schools but stayed in Canada because the quality of education is good and they didn't want to pay $300k+ for their degree. Maybe there's certain top specialists that can only be found at Hopkins or Mayo in the US, but that's not where most Americans are going (even within the 1%).
The doctors I've seen in Canada are equally competent to the American ones in my experience (at "good" but not "world-class" clinics), but I will concede that the American ones take more time with their patients and seem more aggressive with testing and treatment.
Cancer etc - yes, you get fast tracked on the public health care system.
AFAIK, that's illegal. Your employer might not cover everything, but your employer cannot dictate what service you can use. I've seen this before where my employer said "we have health care, but you are not allowed to use it". I later on learned that that's totally illegal, they just wanted to cut costs by hoping that people would comply.
Cancer treatment, etc, there will be a waiting list as well on public sector. Wait time depend on the severity and where you live.
Even if you don't use the public health care it's there for everyone as a safety net in case something is not covered by your employer or insurance, you are between jobs etc.
If you get in a car accident, have a stroke, drug overdose or get cancer, you get almost free world class treatment in the public hospital urgently.
If you hurt your knee while playing tennis but it doesn't prevent you from working and living a normal life (but you can't play tennis with it), you go on the low priority surgery waiting list for public health care or get it faster from private sector via insurance or paying out of pocket.
Does this make sense?