Editing Universal health care (section)

===Spain===
[[Spain]] has a health system paid for by taxes.  Quite centralized but it works quite well.  Hospital care covered but patients sometimes have to wait for non-urgent treatment. Standard charge for prescription medicines with reductions for pensioners. People have the option of taking out private health insurance if they don't want to wait for their non-urgent operations.

Apart from the central system there is also a system of General Practitioners (aka. family doctors) who provide localised care.  The quality of this service varies from the really outstanding to quite poor.

As far as dental treatment is concerned, urgent extractions are covered by the state system, but all other treatment is private. 

In general Spanish people seem quite satisfied with their system, especially when compared with what they understand the American system to be.