My wife and I experienced top-notch healthcare in another country for 20+ years. The US “system” (I am being very generous with that word) is horribly broken.

Please note, I am not disparaging the wonderful work of all the dedicated healthcare delivery professionals, but just like the apocryphal boiling frog, I wonder if you realize just how overburdened you have become due to the mind-numbing complexity of the patchwork of competing and incompatible insurance and billing systems.

And this complexity and burden is leading to potentially dangerous errors. Fortunately, my wife is conversant in medical terminology, for she has spotted egregious errors in her and my medical records in the US, errors we never experienced elsewhere, that could have had disastrous consequences. And she is also conversant in accounting practices, and armed with nearly infinite patience, for the dozens and perhaps hundreds of hours she has spent over the past few years getting billing straightened out.

Contrary to prevailing narratives, we never waited as long overseas for non-urgent care as we have in the US, mostly due to insurance preapproval, but also due to having to remain within our network — an obstacle to receiving care that doesn’t even exist in other systems.

And as for the question of cost, even as a high-wage employee, the increased tax burden overseas was comparable to the cost of private group insurance in the US, not even accounting for the thousands of dollars we didn’t have to spend by not having to satisfy deductibles — another obstacle to receiving care.