America! You are getting royally screwed on your healthcare costs! My husband recently had radical open prostate surgery at one of the best teaching hospitals in Berlin. We are insured under the public health insurance system. Having never worked in Germany, we never paid into that system, and so our annual premiums are calculated on the basis of our “pension income,” i.e. U.S. Social Security and IRA withdrawals. Under that calculation, my husband’s health insurance premiums total about €2,200 per year. Those premiums cover everything except prescription drugs, for which we pay between €5.00 and €10.00 per prescription, depending on the drug and the quantity, and in the event of a surgical intervention, €10.00 per day for inpatient hospital care. My husband was in the hospital for ten days in January, and the whole shebang—from pre-admission visits with the surgeon (the head of the Urology Department) and the anesthesiologist,...