I'm a US citizen living in London. Today I had a conversation with my British and Candian colleagues that highlighted what has frustrated me about US health care since I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease in 1982 at age 12. They said that they'd never had to worry that, no matter what life throws at them, they wouldn't be able to access medical care. They described the security that comes from that. I've had friends who have quit their jobs to work as freelancers or become entrepreneurs, something I was never able to do because I would not have had health care. Britain's NHS is by no means perfect, but the first question you're asked when you phone the doctor isn't "what insurance do you have?" Considering that almost anything can be labeled a pre-existing condition by insurance companies, having the NHS behind me makes me feel safer in another country than in my own.
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