Sometimes I think I'm really lucky. I was dx'd with stage 2b Hodgkin's lymphoma 20 years ago. Half a year of twice-monthly chemotherapy and then an agonizing

Sometimes I think I'm really lucky. I was dx'd with stage 2b Hodgkin's lymphoma 20 years ago. Half a year of twice-monthly chemotherapy and then an agonizing month of daily radiation doses was able to eradicate the disease. Because of the health insurance I had with the startup I was then working for, my total out-of-pocket cost to was $0. We never paid a single co-pay or saw a single bill for any of the treatment (there were co-pays for the 10 years of follow-up visits). To this day I don't know what the total cost of saving my life was. I guess it was 6 digits USD. I contrast to the health insurance I have now. Were I to get sick like that again, I know my out of pocket expenses would be at least $8K per year, and I expect I'd hit that limit several times over the course of the follow-up period.