I was in Stockholm at the end of last week and had to go see a doctor. I was naturally curious about how the pricing would work, although I can’t claim that what I experienced was necessarily the official process. In any case, I first went to an open clinic, where I was charged 1600 SEK (~$240), partly to see a doctor but apparently mostly to be entered into their medical system; I now have a Swedish id # which I can use anytime I happen to be in the neighborhood.

The GP at the clinic referred me to the local hospital, where I think I was already in the system by the time I got there – impressive!  In any case, they never charged me anything more, which means the total was really quite moderate for several hours of tests and staff-time (not trivial in Sweden). I’ll see if my US insurance reimburses any of it.

Later my Swedish friend and I went to a pharmacy to pick up my prescription, and the worker there fiddled around on her computer for a bit. Finally she happily announced that the medicine was not only available without a prescription, but was in fact cheaper that way. Did I mention that pharmacies were recently privatized in Sweden? (the center-right government was returned to power recently, after ousting the decades-long dominance of the social democrats several years ago)

Sounds crazy, but I’m now in Copenhagen and wanted to buy some ibuprofen. Turns out 400mg pills are only available by prescription, but 200mg pills (as many as you want…) are available over the counter. Or you can get them by prescription, but (yes, you guessed it) they’re more expensive that way!

Perhaps it’s a question of keeping things in stock for prescriptions, but that didn’t seem to be an issue. In any case, I’m looking forward to being home again on Sunday, despite having had the chance to experience a foreign health-care system firsthand. I think I’ll wait a bit before putting the Liberian system through its paces.

Allow me two goodnatured pokes at Danish culture. The floor buttons in the hotel elevator are arranged as an increasing sequence from the bottom up (1-8, with 0 at the very bottom) on the left column, and a decreasing sequence (16-9, as viewed from the bottom) on the right — so for instance 6 is next to 11. Huh?

And finally, I have “Mythbusters” on tv in the background. Subtitled in Danish. Fine. But why is the voiceover dubbed into a British English accent? Is that really an efficient use of social resources? They even have the same puns as always.

The fish is good though.