Some countries, like France to my immediate west, come close. The “everything-is-free-there” crowd is in for a disappointment here in Germany, Germany has hundreds of thousands of uninsured citizens. That is a tiny number compared to the USA, but they are no phantoms. When I moved here, I was sent to a “Private” insurer, since my employer is in the USA. I was quoted $35,000 a year, a bit above my pay grade. That was 14 years ago, so probably double that now. If that’s “free,” good morning, Mr. Bezos.
NOTHING is free here. Doctors and teachers do not work for zero salary. Construction firms do not build schools and hospitals from donated material, and without getting paid. Water and utility companies do not provide running water and electricity with charity contributions. These things are financed differently from the way we do it, mostly through taxes and fees. Anyone with stories of medical emergencies being treated here without being billed either got lucky or gave billing info that got written off as unintelligible to the staffer trying to get accurate info. In such cases, congratulations, you just mooched off the local taxpayers. My wife was a social worker here for decades, and had to deal with people who had problems with the government bureaucracy that was supposed to help them. She was never bored, or without people in dire straits knocking on her door.
Gun control laws ARE on the books in almost all Schengen countries. Unfortunately, Schengen also means open borders with all the former socialist colonies of the Soviet Union. When the Red Army withdrew, their soldiers sold off hundreds of thousands of guns for dollars or cash from the Western European countries. They are everywhere, and for sale—not legally, of course—but the hole they can put in you is just as real. Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, show the cash and you need not leave unarmed.
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