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This a side point, but one of the positive aspects of my family's experience living in Europe (Belgium) for several years and being in their medical care environment was the unpretentious doctors' practices. The GP we had was in a small office with one receptionist, we could get an appointment within a day, and if necessary he would come to our apartment for a house call. Same with my wife's obstetrician, surgeon (she gave birth to our twins there), our pediatrician, and the kinesiologist who did my wife's post natal PT.

The only complaint she had with the hospital care was the bed in her room (semi-private but because she had twins she had the room to herself) was very uncomfortable. The nursing staff was very attentive and friendly. This contrasted hugely with the care she received at the ultra modern hospital in New Jersey where my son was born four years earlier. Inattentive nurses, one of whom I almost sued over her mishandling redressing my wife's caesarean incision causing a secondary infection.

I came to the conclusion that the huge staff's (and expenses that are driving many of them out of the profession) doctors here all seem to need are due to government over regulation, lawyers and our tort liability laws, and the massive and complex paperwork the insurance companies require. All of it combines into a stew doctors need a small army of employees to manage. Maybe others' Europe expatriate medical experience was different (I certainly wouldn't want to be in the British NHS or in a third world environment, but I repeat myself) but I was impressed with ours.