Here, in Russia, basic medical assistance is mostly free (or costs peanuts compared to US), but on the flip side you have to sit through enormous queues, talk to incompetent doctors and doctors themselves might extort you. Paid medicine is better and sometimes better qualified, and you get better service, but it's totally out of budget for anyone below middle class.

Good news is that you won't be charged bajillion dollars after you broke your hand, bad news is that you'll have to wait and suffer in horrible insanitary that is Russian polyclinic.

I have mixed feelings about our health care system. I believe, it will gradually disintegrate as doctors from soviet era get older and retire.