Healthcare comparisons

Taiwan: national healthcare for all citizens/permanent residents is free or cheap; private health care and hospitals are cheap. Better to pay $7-9 to see a private doctor instead of $2 though: you'll see someone more reputable and you only have to wait a few minutes. $2 gets you to a 3 hour line at the general hospital, even when you have broken bones. It works like the DMV: you take a ticket and wait in line. You see the doctor, sometimes with a bunch of other random people in the room, then you get medicine and diagnosis and go home.

One example of cost differences:
Taiwan: Cost to have surgery at the hospital on a fractured right hand, including getting pins put in and several subsequent doctor's visits (without insurance): $450-500 USD - doctor who performed surgery and became my private doctor has degree from US and residency was at UC San Diego


U.S.: Two doctor's visits, first to get the broken hand "inspected" as a new patient, including x-rays of the pins and fracture ($100+$70) and the second visit to get the pins removed, i.e. the doctor took a pair of pliers and numbed my hand, then yanked them out :-( (cost: $70). Total cost: $240 USD
Doctor from U.S. tells me that they "did a good job in Taiwan" but the way I was told to take care of the area around the pins (iodine) is "very outdated, from the 1970s" (oh, gimme a break!)

In the end? I got a $10,000 surgery for the price of $500, and without any major issues so far as I can tell.

And on a somewhat related note, it turns out that once L and I get married and I move to Germany I get added to his healthcare at no extra cost. It's just another checkbox on the form for "family plan."