Smelly Swiss Dilettante

[Jean]

long time without any update.
I'm in the train to hike in France for two weeks.
I'll go further toward gibraltar on my continental divide hike.

The trip in the us ended well. I was able to meet Grundomatic and Dustbowl, I had a good time with both, and left with the impression that it was reciprocal.
With grundomatic we mostly played boardgame and i cooked a ratatouille and flan.
Dustbowl cooked some homemade mac n cheese, and we talked about life and his plans.
Back home, i had a concert with my carnival band, i accompanied a few roe deer hunt.
My grandma attended christmas with us, it took some convincing, because she was affraid it would be too much hassle to drive her back home in case she'd want to leave early.
We spent the new year in the same mountain hut as usual.
I'm thinking about studying veterinary medicine, but it's 6 years. At least no need to be an intern.
it's frustrating, because, it would have been a good fit for me, but 20years ago, i thought it was too easy.
deadline to register is 15 of february.

[Jean]

My Health isurance cost 4000 a year, that's with a 2500.- yearly deductible.
I usually get about half of it payed, which makes it bearable, but i forgot to apply last year, so I have to advance the whole sum and get refunded latter, which is very annoying, and stressfull, because I can't feel sure it will actually be refunded. When i retired, i had to pay about 1000 a year, which was much easier to accept.
I really dislike this system, because i pay a lot, and don't get anything in return, because having to pay the deductible makes it too expensive.
If i have a catastrophic disease, i'll probably detect it too late and just die, which also kinda sucks.

I can't opt out legally. There are some options to opt out illegaly, but they are risky.

Whith all i already payed, i could have built a second appartment.

At least this financial stress motivated me to make a website for my consulting business (to do), and apply for a second job (done).

[chenda]

Healthcare costs are maybe the one downside of living in Switzerland, which is otherwise not as expensive as people think. It's something of an outlier in Europe in terms of healthcare spending and costs.

[Jean]

Well, about 150.- (which is what i'll end up paying) per month is bearable. I don't know how much it costs in other european countries. It's free in France, but people die in the ER waiting room there, so maybe there is some kind of tradeof.

[zbigi]

Around 550 PLN (118 CHF) in Poland per month, if you don't work, don't study, are not retired/on disability, and are not seeking work (registered as unemployed). Plenty of people pretend to be seeking work, and hang on in the unemployment center for years if not decades - the harrasment imposed by the unemployment centre is bearable.

There is no deducible.

The level of care is ok. There are multimonth queues to some specialists, and many (most?) drugs are not refunded. On the other hand, in serious cases like cancer, heart surgery, transplants etc. the care is pretty good (including some drugs that were only recently put on the market) and the expensive drugs are refunded to be free or at minimal cost for the patient. I've never heard of anyone going bankrupt because of medical costs in Poland.

I personally chose not to be insured. If I urgently need hospital care, e.g. with a broken leg, I can pay for the treatment and hospital stay out of pocket. The prices are reasonable, perhaps something like 10-20k PLN (2-4k CHF) all around for surgery for a broken leg and weeks of hospital stay. For anything non-urgent, like cancer, I can just get on the insurance any time with some financial penalty (partial backpay for missed premiums), that can even be worked around completely with minimal effort.

[Stahlmann]

@zbigi
It's 699,11 zł currently. The hack is here that you buy 1 month and the insurance works 1 month more after it ends, so effectively you can pay for 6 months in the year (not checked in practice).

It's getting harder to pretend that you are looking for a job indefinitely (don't ask why I know it).

[zbigi]

It's getting harder to pretend that you are looking for a job indefinitely (don't ask why I know it).

It somewhat depends on your personal charm I guess. A friend of mine has been doing that for 7 years now, and the lady in the unemployment office just smiles when she sees him, has a short chat with him and sets a new date for visit 6-8 weeks later. The people working in unemployment office must be aware of the fact that large part of their clientele are fake-unemployed who only go there for the health insurance (gatekeeping of which is not 100% constitutional BTW, as access to healthcare is a constitutional right of every Polish citizen).

[delay]

In The Netherlands my healthcare costs are 118 euro a month (up from 106 euro last year.) I have the maximum allowed deductible of 850 euro.

[Jean]

my body temperature stayed over 39 degrees for the last three days. this suck. It was a very fortunate thing when flu only lasted a day.
Aging i guess.

[delay]

my body temperature stayed over 39 degrees for the last three days. this suck. It was a very fortunate thing when flu only lasted a day.
Aging i guess.

Best wishes for your health! I like to think of sickness as a body cleaning, so when the pain is over, a fresh version of myself emerges.

[Jean]

I nearly only ingested water, so yeah, i might have gotten a form of deep cleaning

Thank you for the kind words.

[Jean]

i got the reduction for my health insurance, so i only end up paying about 200 a month. That's still a lot.
Also, I applied for a job at the patent office in bern. It looks very interesting.

What is nice with ere, is that all income will go into savings, except taxes.
It would be nice to have enough money to don't hesitate going to a doctor
Otherwise, with the money, i'de like to build a second appartment in my house, or maybe buy an other house with more land around it so that more people could camp there.
I'de like to stay in canton bern, because it seems to be one of the best place for hunting in europe outside possibly scandinavia and the baltics. I say possibly, because I find it hard to find infos online.
Here, the terrain variety is really impressive for such a small area, and there is enough big game (with a low marginal hunting right cost) to actually make a living out of it.
How is hunting where you live?

[chenda]

I know someone who hunts in the Serra de Monchique. I don't know how it compares to Switzerland but he speaks highly of it.

[bos]

In the Netherlands hunting is close to impossible. Doesn't matter how good you aim, you will always hit a cyclist
Now that I live in Germany you hear more about hunting. It's an active sport (within very small groups of people) and the government is happy if you shoot Wild boar.

[Jean]

in most southern germany, you need to buy the hunting right for an individual plot of land. Is it similar in the north/east?

[guitarplayer]

Scottish lowlands are in my experience all about pheasants, you have feeders on farms to have plenty birds for the season. From what I gather talking to native Scots, it is purely for sports (at least for the most part).

In the highlands I think now that there are no wolves, deer is like a pest preventing forestation of those areas, so hunting is encouraged.

[jacob]

Also, I applied for a job at the patent office in bern. It looks very interesting.

Maybe you can get Einstein's old office.

[Henry]

To think that the two people who came up with the world changing ideas of the theory of relativity and the shit pipe came out of the same office more than 100 years apart is mind boggling.

[Jean]

My shit will maybe go trough the same pipe as Einstein's did.

[Henry]

I know how much that would mean to you. Good luck.