Not to worry about healthcare and medicine costs is not really true. I just commented about it. Most people pay extra for private insurance even if they get public healthcare for free.
From experience in the UK Private insurance is not worth it as an employer benefit as you get taxed on it.
Currently I am in Germany, and I had a serious health issue. The sort of thing that makes you go bankrupt in the US. I had surgery and months of treatment for free. I stayed on my own private room in the hospital, and it looked like a hotel room, with a private bathroom. I payed zero euros, this was all on public healthcare. They even offered me a few days in a SPA to recover after surgery. They even funded the metro tickets to go from my house to the place where I received the treatment.
Some other EU member states do not have the resources for such niceties, but you will absolutely get the treatment you need.
I feel sorry for people in the U.S. I read about all sorts of situations that are heartbreaking, and it confuses me that most people there still vote against universal healthcare. This serves nobody except the very rich people exploiting the situation.
I listen to North American podcasts and such, and I am still surprised to hear educated people repeating lies about the situation in Europe, as if we were some almost-communist repressive society about to collapse. The most common assertion is that, after all, the US is the only country with "real freedom". To my European ears, this sounds exactly like the sort of propaganda you get from any authoritarian regime. As if "freedom" is some simple one-dimensional things that can be measured like this.
I think it would be good if U.S. citizens had a more realistic picture of how the rest of the western world lives.
To quote for the non-Hebrew readers: "83% of the people paid for extra insurance in addition to what they get from the government"
Also, it's not "private" insurance in any meaningful sense. It's out of pocket adjustments for exactly the same services. This is what I was alluding to.
Also to make things clear, when you say people in the US pay hundreds of dollars a month, that's also true for many Israelis. The public insurance is not free if you have a job. The more you make the more you pay. If you work in tech it's likely you're also paying hundreds of dollars a month. (don't get me wrong, I think this system makes sense, it's the same as income taxes). The situation in the US isn't great but it's been much better in the last decade. For example, I live in Massachusetts and everyone in the state is required to have health insurance. If you're low income then you get your insurance from the state.