Memes

The glasses part sounds similar to Germany. I‘m pretty near sighted (-4.25-ish diopters) and without glasses I‘m more or less useless. Can’t focus on things beyond like 20cm from my face. Can’t read shit that isn’t either that close or ginormous.

According to German public insurance, I’m not blind enough for them to subsidize my glasses, let alone pay for them outright.

To be fair, you can get glasses somewhat cheaply for sub 100€ if you’re not too picky about frames or high quality lenses with good coating but still. At least that much should be covered by insurance at the point where you aren’t allowed to operate a vehicle without glasses anymore, imo.

Also, I don’t wanna shit on German public insurance too much because so far I’ve never had to pay a penny for any doctor’s appointment and necessary medications have been free as well. Also, mental health is covered, at least when it’s deemed necessary aka you‘ve been diagnosed with a mental illness, so maybe the commenter above isn’t from here.

Yup, Europe is pretty heterogeneous

That description matches where I live, Belgium