My residence is in Switzerland, where I was diagnosed several years ago with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, for which I've gotten superb care at what is probably the best hospital and with some of the best doctors in a country with sky-high medical standards. I've had lots of tests; antibody treatment; surgery; many scans and X-rays; and radiation treatment. All this isn't cheap. It's the first time in my adult life I've needed sustained medical care. And my perfectly ordinary, basic Swiss health insurance has paid for almost all of it without a fuss. Wait -- there was one fuss: my wife and I spend considerable time in France, but my Swiss insurer at first didn't want to pay for my regular treatments there, which would have either trapped us in Switzerland or cost me a serious amount, more than just pennies. But with a little help we discovered that Swiss law requires them to pay for those treatments in France (where, incidentally, they're a lot cheaper!), so we weren't trapped in Switzerland. I know that my care is covered by my basic insurance, and I can switch insurers if I want, so although I still have the problem of cancer (along with some other things related to being a mature age, like cataracts -- now solved by the standard surgery), I don't have the problem of worrying whether I can afford to pay. My insurance, by the way, costs $435 per month, and luckily I can afford that. Just for your information: my antibody treatments cost about $3400 each in Switzerland; the identical treatments about $960 each in France; and in the USA a few years ago, $11,000-$18,000 depending on where. Same brand-name medicine, same method. What's the lesson here? I never cease being aware of the injustice when others can't afford care, or may not even be able to get to it. I'm damned lucky. I'm still alive. And my T-shirt says so.