Just want to add a few facts about Norway, prices and so on.
A "short" summary:
1. When a woman is pregnant, she will receive free medical care. ALL expenses covered. You get a few ultrasound pictures of the baby and so on.
The mother don't have to work during this period, and she will be paid 100% of her salary.
2. The baby "pops out" and ALL visits to the doctor/hospital will be free for both the mother and child. If you need to go to the hospital with your child - the government will reimburse your travel expenses too.
3. The child will get free dental care until the age of 18. Then they will have to pay 25% of the cost until they're like.. about 20?.. And they will pay 50% of the costs until they are 25. After this you are expected to have a job and make enough money to pay for the dental service by yourself. I can add that it you go to a university (that is free), they might have a special deal for students. Often it is free, or you have a very good discount (85%).
There are talks about including dental care in the overall free health care package. But this will have a high starting price in the beginning. Now people that can not afford dental care due to drug abuse (crystal meth) may get it for free if they stop taking drugs. This cost 12-20 000 dollars for every person...
3. Parents will have to pay for some of the kindergarten costs. Limited to 288 dollars a month. If you have little money, you will have to pay less.
4. School is free, including universities. Also most universities in other countries. I went to HPI (Hawaii Pacific University), and to one in Australia. I didn't have to pay anything extra..
I have now taken 7 years at university level. I've taken 1 year math, 1 year physics, 1 year chemistry, 1 year history, 1 year psychology, 1 year marine biology and 1 year with a mix of English, Spanish, German, computer ed and business economics.
I think I'll take another 2-3 years. Then I will probably start working as a teacher (with a masters degree)
Before the university I took 3 years studying electronics and computers - which is my job now. I have worked some, during the last 3 years of the university to keep my student loan low. I get about 1800 dollars a month from the state/government. If I pass the classes I take I have to pay back about only half of this amount. I get this much because I have children. I also got 800 dollars a month to cover my living expenses. Since I now make enough money from my job I don't need any money from the government, including the student loan.
5. Now.. to the cost of living. This will depend on where you live. It's like the real estate agent says: location, location, location.
If you live in Oslo you WILL pay much more then in the rest of Norway. Some parts of the town is among the most expensive place to live in the world. You pay more for a VERY small apartment than a large house with a lot of land in other places of the country.
I'm not sure why people will live in Oslo at all. It is by far not the most beautiful place to live in Norway. But there are many people that want to live there, and there are not too many houses. Building regulations prevent the construction of houses north of the city (because of a forest that is protected). There are also hight regulations when it comes to buildings.
You can buy a house for less than 100 000 dollars in Norway, but you will probably use some money to fix it. Or else you can build a new house from about 200 000 dollars and up.
I'm building a house now with 3 floors (150 square meters each floor). And a 120 square meter garage & hobby room next to the house. It will cost me about 330 000 dollars. I will do a lot of the work myself ( saving about 250 000 dollars) - but because of always changing and always stricter energy efficiency rules, building materials will cost a lot.
The window glass will have to be of a special kind and quality. The walls need to be extra insulated for every year. A house will now have 25cm of insulation as a standard. Some years back it was 10. This will continue increase every 3-5 years. I'm building with 30-40cm because I will save on electricity. We don't use gas in Norway. We sell it to other countries that use it to heat their homes, water and so on. We get over 95% of our electricity from hydro electric power. The rest is from a combination of windpower, gas, solar (we are one of the largest manufacturer of solar enery equipment in the world: REC solar and Elkem). We also import some from Sweden and Denmark - which we also sell electricity to.
Electricity used to be dirt cheap in Norway. Most of the hydro electric powerplants where (and still are) government owned. They said the price will be 0,04 dollars for 1 kW/h. A few years back, they started to take some kind of market price, and sold electricity to other countries. Our price rose as a result of this. This also affected industry that depended on cheap electricity like the aluminum, magnesium and titanium manufacturers.
Back to my house again... I will have to pay for an advanced ventilation system in the house which recycles the heat in the air. The ventilation system is also balanced.. which adds to the cost. I have water pipes running in all floors to heat the house, using a heat pump - to save electricity and the environment.
Things that cost a lot in Norway can almost always be summed up as either bad for the environment AND/OR bad for the health of the user. So heavy cars with large engines using a lot of fuel WILL cost a lot of money. One car model can be 2-3 times more expensive if you have the largest engine available. You will NOT see a lot of V8 and V6 engines here. They will in 90% of the cases be in an old American car like the Corvette, TransAm, Camaro or Murtang. Few people will pay 60 000 dollars extra to get the larges engine. They will settle with a small diesel engine using 0.45 liters for every 10km it drive in average (or less for even smaller cars).
I think it is a bit sad, since I like the sound of a V8.. but the environment is more important.
The car tax is based on the engines CO2 emissions and the cars weight. The rules are changing more and more to the CO2 emission than the weight.
It has a few strange side effects. I drive an old VW Caravelle (Eurovan in the US?) ... anyway. I bought it used for 9000 dollars. That is just over 2 month salaries for me. It's getting old, and I'd like to get a new one... but I want the long version with 8 seats, 4x4 and the second smallest diesel engine... it will cost me 140 000 dollars. Yikes.. It is cheaper for me to buy 2 smaller Mercedes C class cars.
So I think the rules will change to make the large car cheaper. I could for exampel buy a much larger minibus with 16 seats for 69 000 dollars..
Anyway... other expensive stuff is cigarettes and alcohol. Why? It's not good for you.. and the government pays for your medical expenses. If you become an alcoholic or gets cancer or heart problems... it will be expensive. The government increase the price - so they will either stop smoking or reduce their alcohol consumption.. or they will pay more tax to the government so when they need medical care.. they have paid their share.
6. Some more benefits. You get 1 year with full pay after you have given birth to a child, so you can bond to the child from day one.
If you loose your job, the government will give you money until you get a job on your own. It you have not had a job for years they will pay you about 1 000 dollars a month and they might pay for your housing too...
It you can not work anymore due to injuries for example.. you will receive money from the state anyway.
They may also tax luxury goods more then regular goods - because they are not required to live a regular life. You don't have to drive a Ferrari, or smoke or drink alcohol. But if you do.. you just have to pay a bit more.
Since no people are left alone - they are not dirt poor. They don't have family or friends that can't afford medical care. Everybody that want it, can get an education. Do you want to be a physics professor or an electrician? It does not matter. It's free.
So you will have very few desperate people, that do desperate things to get money. So we get a very safe society.
We have a few cases but they are usually committed by people from former Yugoslavia or a middle eastern/ Afghan/ Somalian individual. That is basically the thanks we get by using 160 000 dollars a year for every foreigner we get. Paying for their schooling, housing and so on. Because we are a member of Schengen we also get out share of criminals from Lithuania (now a synonym with thief in Norway). A few hundred criminals destroying their national image. We have a few from Romania and Bulgaria either professional thief's or they try to add skimming equipment on our ATMs. A criminal in Norway costs at least 1000 000 dollars a year. They can be glad I don't rule this country. There's a lot of things a 9mm bullet can solve. Use 50 cents to save a million a year..
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