• Rolando@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    When I was in grad school, I went to a conference in Portugal. One of the other American grad students slipped on a paving stone and bust his leg. It wasn’t that bad, but he was freaking out because he had no idea how European insurance worked and he was afraid he’d be in serious debt. Everyone at the hospital thought that was hilarious. Why would getting hurt put you in debt? They patched him up for no charge. In theory he could have gone to some office and made a modest payment, but nobody was going to actually make him do that.