This isn’t intended as a “how to” guide, just a description.
I am at Mettarama in Australia (urban, no live in anagarika). Australia has a number of government health subsidies, including Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits scheme (PBS), as well as the low income healthcare card and some other state based free ambulance (it depends on the state tho).
It’s possible to get GP bulk billed (free) here under Medicare, but sometimes there are random clinic fees that you either have to ask for an exemption for or get help with. Dental and specialist is not covered. Ambulance depends on the state and low income healthcare card etc. Physio is not normally covered, however, you can get up to five free visits under Medicare though if you have a care plan for a chronic condition.
I don’t plan minor medical out in advance, I just see what needs to happen each time and then work out the best way to do it. We have a monastery account and I normally see supporters min 1-2 times weekly anyway, either they can come in to help pay and get reimbursed, or a donor can help. My GP is also Buddhist.
We have put a lot of work into building monastery structures like the account up in general, so the small medical expenses just become like any other expense. Medicare and the low income healthcare card helps a lot in this respect. There are things we could do that we haven’t done yet, like a pharmacy account or dedicated petty cash, that could also help.
The more major things are worked out together with the committee at the level of stay and spending policy as we would rather not cover things like full fare ambulance for monastics (you need ambulance cover in some shape or form) & our structures need to be able to let us do things like hospital admission. Much of our stay process came from NBM.
It’s easier to think about the big things in advance as to have people on the monastery system, we need to be confident we can meet expenses for them. Agreeing to look after a human being requires a significant financial buffer, especially as we have other ongoing expenses.
Apart from that, I think I probably have a similar experience of healthcare in Australia to any low income individual. Many if not most low income Australians do not have comprehensive health insurance. Non-PBS medication can be expensive even if it’s capped. Dental is potentially expensive. It is still nonetheless relatively easy to be a monastic here, thanks to what is covered by Medicare.