Every time you see a doctor you pay a deductible of about $50. You pay the doctor himself, he or she has got a credit card machine on the desk. No extra people needed. After you've paid about $300 in a calendar year, everything else for the year costs $0. Even prescriptions.

If you want and need something non-urgent, you may need to wait. A friend of mine had to wait 2 months for a hernia operation. He didn't want to wait, so he went to a private for-profit hospital and got his operation, which cost about $2000. (In the US a hernia operation will cost your insurance company about $6500, and the $2000 Norway price is for profit, so there's an interesting comparison). If you are classified as urgent care, you get everything right away.

The medical system is centrally computerized. The minute you finish with your allergy specialist your record shows the results and all of your doctors can see them immediately.

There are no deals with pharaceutical companies. Hospitals do not battle with insurance companies and not trying to make a profit. The result is you get the exact care you need. Does the doctor have a question about something happening inside of you? They won't hesitate to order a CT scan or whatever procedure they need to help understand.

I've been having cancer treatment for the past several years and have had extensive experience with the health care system. It rocks. I can spend my time worrying about getting healthy and not worrying about paperwork or paying bills. Do you think that helps? I do.

Norway has the second highest life-expectancy, the second highest infant survival rate, and health care costs less than half of what it does in the U.S. Norway is also the happiest country in the whole world, perhaps not unrelated.