[inglor_cz]

Czech here. In theory, our healthcare system should work the way you described. In practice, a shortage of doctors is developing in less lucrative regions. You will always have good service in Prague or Brno, but elsewhere, you may run into problems.

This article shows a hundred-strong queue of patients waiting to register to a newly opened dentist office. Some of them waited overnight.

https://www.idnes.cz/ostrava/zpravy/lhotka-ostrava-fronta-zu...

Mind you, this is Ostrava, the third largest city in the country.

[Mikeb85]

Fair enough. We're in Karlovy Vary region and everything has seemed very efficient.

One thing I have noticed is that Czechs are very critical of their country, which to my eyes seems to function quite well, for what it's worth.

Canadians put up with far worse and yet will defend it. Also, our whole country has a doctor shortage. No sane doctor stays in Canada when the US pays multiples more...

[inglor_cz]

There is definitely a tendency towards some self-flagellation in CZ, though I think this is vastly more widespread elsewhere (just witness the ritual meltdowns in English language media whenever some election does not turn out perfectly "right").

I like to think I am pretty resistant to that. So, some earned praise: Czechia is a very safe country which was able to get some things work better than many others (we even have a functioning gun culture without too much machismo or regular bloodsheds - the compulsory safety and legal tests are a good filter against crazies). Our healthcare is fairly decent, though necessarily limited by the overall economic level, which is, by the standards of Western Europe, second tier.

What is really f_cked up is the real estate market. Our construction permit bureaucracy would make the Byzantine courts blush, a normal block of flats may spend a decade in permission limbo before the first shovel touches the ground. As a result, prices have gone absolutely mad in the last few years, especially in Prague.

(Meanwhile, similarly sized Polish capital Warsaw built 100 000 apartments in five years or so and housing is much more affordable there as a consequence.)

[Mikeb85]

> What is really f_cked up is the real estate market.

Cries in Canadian...

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/least-affordable-cities-to-...

[lostlogin]

New Zealand and Australia have really pushed on since that was published. It's 12-15x median wage here in Auckland now. Depressing.

https://www.interest.co.nz/property/house-price-income-multi...