My experience so far in Hungary - and I expect Slovenia to be pretty similar is that you can't really compare the benefits between state provided medical in Central/Eastern Europe to what can get through private insurance in the U.S.

I never knew someone in the US that had to get cash to the doctor on the side or bring their own toilet paper and food to the hospital.

Know any Slovenians who got bankrupted by appendicitis?

I'm not exactly sure what grandparent is implying. Health care in Slovenia is actually pretty nice (you most certainly don't need to bring your own food or anything else in the hospital) and covers most of the situations you might encounter in your life, with one ugly exception: queues for some non-life-threatening operations and/or examinations. Most notorious being orthopedic surgery. It turns out that what isn't life threatening today, might become very dangerous for your health in the timespan of several months, before it's your turn to be operated on. So many people who get stuck in queues pay additionally from their pockets to get the necessary examinations/operations as soon as possible in privately owned medical establishments. Another funny thing stemming from this fact is that many doctors/surgeons work in public hospitals four days a week and then privately a day a week or some similar arrangement.

If it's better in Slovenia, then I'm glad. Not trying to imply anything and I apologize if I caused offense.

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying you can't just compare costs straight across by looking at taxes vs. premiums because in the health care system here there are a number of hidden costs.

I had a friend who broke his arm. The emergency room doctor wouldn't touch him until the family provided some cash.

If you have to provide extra bedding, food and toiletries for a hospital stay on your own - those costs aren't reflected in the taxes that one pays for health care.

This has nothing to do with debating the merits about either system, I'm purely talking about trying to accurately compare the costs.

I'm asking seriously: how much cash? Couple hundred bucks?

The system you describe is obviously corrupt, and I sympathize with the frustration, but I might prefer a system where I had to spiff doctors a couple bills to get an arm set over a system where I could be both insured and bankrupted by minor surgery that happened to snag a loophole in my policy. That's the private market insurance system we have in the US.

I'm not sure what he payed and that was a while ago. Most Americans that I know in Hungary, when they need something done they go to Austria.

I lived in the US most of my life. The health care system there is pretty messed up - in my opinion. But when I moved to Hungary I realized I'd been quite naive about how things are here.

I assumed it was a rather cut and dry fact that health care would be better here - and it isn't as simple as I had assumed.

I suspect you'd get near royal treatment with a couple hundred bucks...