Mrs. Atrios and I spent two months in Barcelona in summer 2003. You may remember the good old days when the corrente crowd was posting. While we were there Mrs. Atrios had a wee stomach bug, enough to necessitate a trip to the doctor. After a bit of hunting we found a local health clinic. After a bit of discussion they took her passport number at reception, sat us down, and a half hour or so later she saw a doctor. The doctor inquired about her insurance. My wife explained that we had travel insurance, and the way it worked was that we'd just cover any costs and then submit them upon our return. This troubled the doctor greatly, not because of the cost of the exam, which turned out to be free, but because of concern about the cost of the drugs which were to be prescribed.
We took the prescription, went to our local pharmacy, and had it filled.
Cost?
About 3 bucks.
Spain spends about 7.5% of its GDP on health care. We spend about 13.9%. About 4% of our GDP is spent on a subset of health care called... "health care administration."
This raises the obvious question -- why do they hate freedom?
