To your latter point, I think (and somewhat from experience, in Germany), it’s more that everything in Europe is generally concentrated in a smaller space, specifically because the countries are, for the most part, smaller…
So unless you’re way out in a rural area, say, in a larger country such as Ukraine or Poland (or even a village in Spain, for example), you’re just never that far from those services…
There’s also the cultural difference that fast international trains, slower, regional trains, ferries of all sorts, riverboats and buses everywhere else, are almost completely ubiquitous, even in a relatively poorer country such as Turkey (from experience), as is some form of “universal” healthcare, even in somewhere like Russia, so… The situation you describe simply does not usually happen, simply because it does not need to.
This has been my experience in several euro countries, both EU and non-EU. YMMV.
It's not necessarily being far from services. In the US, the large cities are going to have practically every kind of service you're looking for. However most "experts" are little more than parrots who cannot deal with complex scenarios. If you're having a serious issue, and an expert that is actually better than the rest is one state over, then the travel is worth it.
But if your mindset is to only look at something local, and traveling to another state/country is like going to another planet, then you purposely close yourself off of some better options that may exist.
Ok, fine. Sure. All I can say is that just isn’t how healthcare works, in other places. Sometimes you can choose your specialist, but, in the VAST majority of cases, in the public system, which most people will use, so as to avoid paying thousands of dollars out of pocket, you simply can’t usually do that.
It depends where I live. But say, hypothetically, I live in… Brisbane. I decide, for whatever reason, that I want to see a doctor in Sydney, which is a 10+ hour drive away, because I think they are better. In the public system I can’t do that, because it’s not in my “catchment area”…
Hell, in some states, if you live on the north side of the city, you have to go to the PUBLIC hospital on the north side, not the one on the south side. Because again, catchments. Otherwise the perceived “best” hospitals and doctors will be completely overwhelmed. Again, this only applies to the PUBLIC system. It also applies to PUBLIC schools. Though not universities, of course…
The rest of the world does not operate on the American model. That’s the fundamental “disconnect”, here, I think. What you’re used to, simply isn’t how it works, in the vast majority of the rest of the world, including Australia.
Notably, I also live on an island, surrounded by water. To leave this island costs minimum… Multiple hundreds of dollars.
So for me personally, even if I could, in the private system, get into a doctor I “preferred”, in a different state, the cost would be so astronomical as to not be worth it… Hence, I wouldn’t bother.
But that is still an OPTION, for me, because I actually have private health insurance, unlike most Australians, New Zealanders, Brits, Spanish, French, Brazilians, Germans, etc. in all these countries, you don’t actually need it to get good healthcare, so many, many young, fit, healthy people simply won’t bother…
But that means putting up with the public health system, and all that includes, as I outlined.
To your latter point, I think (and somewhat from experience, in Germany), it’s more that everything in Europe is generally concentrated in a smaller space, specifically because the countries are, for the most part, smaller…
So unless you’re way out in a rural area, say, in a larger country such as Ukraine or Poland (or even a village in Spain, for example), you’re just never that far from those services…
There’s also the cultural difference that fast international trains, slower, regional trains, ferries of all sorts, riverboats and buses everywhere else, are almost completely ubiquitous, even in a relatively poorer country such as Turkey (from experience), as is some form of “universal” healthcare, even in somewhere like Russia, so… The situation you describe simply does not usually happen, simply because it does not need to.
This has been my experience in several euro countries, both EU and non-EU. YMMV.
It's not necessarily being far from services. In the US, the large cities are going to have practically every kind of service you're looking for. However most "experts" are little more than parrots who cannot deal with complex scenarios. If you're having a serious issue, and an expert that is actually better than the rest is one state over, then the travel is worth it.
But if your mindset is to only look at something local, and traveling to another state/country is like going to another planet, then you purposely close yourself off of some better options that may exist.
Ok, fine. Sure. All I can say is that just isn’t how healthcare works, in other places. Sometimes you can choose your specialist, but, in the VAST majority of cases, in the public system, which most people will use, so as to avoid paying thousands of dollars out of pocket, you simply can’t usually do that.
It depends where I live. But say, hypothetically, I live in… Brisbane. I decide, for whatever reason, that I want to see a doctor in Sydney, which is a 10+ hour drive away, because I think they are better. In the public system I can’t do that, because it’s not in my “catchment area”…
Hell, in some states, if you live on the north side of the city, you have to go to the PUBLIC hospital on the north side, not the one on the south side. Because again, catchments. Otherwise the perceived “best” hospitals and doctors will be completely overwhelmed. Again, this only applies to the PUBLIC system. It also applies to PUBLIC schools. Though not universities, of course…
The rest of the world does not operate on the American model. That’s the fundamental “disconnect”, here, I think. What you’re used to, simply isn’t how it works, in the vast majority of the rest of the world, including Australia.
Notably, I also live on an island, surrounded by water. To leave this island costs minimum… Multiple hundreds of dollars.
So for me personally, even if I could, in the private system, get into a doctor I “preferred”, in a different state, the cost would be so astronomical as to not be worth it… Hence, I wouldn’t bother.
But that is still an OPTION, for me, because I actually have private health insurance, unlike most Australians, New Zealanders, Brits, Spanish, French, Brazilians, Germans, etc. in all these countries, you don’t actually need it to get good healthcare, so many, many young, fit, healthy people simply won’t bother…
But that means putting up with the public health system, and all that includes, as I outlined.