My surgery cost me roughly 1-3 months of a typical Indian software engineer's salary. If my relative wealth had been the same it would have been a very good exp

My surgery cost me roughly 1-3 months of a typical Indian software engineer's salary. If my relative wealth had been the same it would have been a very good experience. In contrast, there was a recent NYT article about a person in the US who underwent a similar surgery. A single billing discrepancy (to say nothing about the entire bill) is comparable to a software engineer's yearly salary. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/us/drive-by-doctoring-surprise-medical-bills.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/us/drive-by-doctoring-surp... Furthermore, the experience was easy, with none of the nonsense I deal with in the US. When I got to India, my initial medical exam cost roughly the same as a dinner at a decent restaurant. An MRI cost me the same as an expensive night out. I was given a price quote for the treatment and the total cost (including incidentals) was within 2-3% of the quote. The only person who even tried to rip me off during the process was the auto rickshaw driver who took me home. Certainly the bill would have hurt me more if I were a typical Indian. But the experience I'm describing is not the wealth gap. I know people who are "that much wealthier" than the average American and they do have lots of complaints about the US system.