What about asking your employer for a 6 months sabbatical and go sailing as a crew? You won’t need to buy / prep the boat and you’ll gain experience wrt to type of boat and navigation and also if it’s something you’d like to dedicate more years to. You might be able to sublet your place to cover for living expenses.
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An important point / question.
are you or do you have a Swisspassort?
if you have, you could consider spend time in some southern EU countries or elsewhere where healthcare services are provided. Often even in Greece or Portugal you would get access to MS drugs and also good ones, it’s a serious condition. Conversely in some ex EU or emerging markets or other where you require health insurance, then either it may require payment direct or indirect or also risk to get older and less efficacious drugs.
cuz one option is to plan your way out now, work 1-2 years and then leave. No regrets
Unfortunately, I can’t get a sabbatical with my job to say, sail for 6 months or more and come back to work. Once I leave, that’s it. I don’t expect to be able to find a (decent) job at 55 or more.
I’m Swiss with a couple more passports (DE, CA), so that leaves me with options to live elsewhere.
I thought that one strategy would be to invest in ETFs with low dividends (like VOO, QQQ, VGT or other tech) to avoid paying income tax on dividends and then optimise wealth tax by moving to a small flat in a favorable canton. The investment would be risky, and I would have to have an other liquid cushion anyway, but I think I would be willing to take the risk and also increase the withdrawal rate somewhat if the market allows.
Also, moving to a European country with good insurance is an option. I did not make any calculations about taxes on income and capital gain. Also, I’m not familiar with the various health systems and their insurance. I don’t want to get a low-efficacy drug as an alternative.
I optimized the franchise indeed. Next year, I’ll pay 7110 in total plus some non-reimbursed bills. First time in my life this year that I actually used the insurance…
I thought about leaving with less capital and using it slowly. But I would be terrified to end up totally broke in 10 years with 7-10k AHV and nothing else and living a poor life on social security. Not brave enough yet for this route. For now, I can’t imagine quitting work for good with “only” 1 M. Even 1.5 M I feel is on the short end. It’s only the new health situation that requires new thinking and exploring possibilities.
Thanks for all the good inputs.
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Quick check for Greece (I am Greek) says that while most if not all novel/high-efficacy drugs for MS are 100% covered (ie are free), what’s not covered are important supportive activities like physiotherapy, emotional and mental support, family/carer assistance 
Generally Greek public health is far better for emergencies (all 100% covered for anyone regardless of their status/nationality/insurance) than chronic conditions, sadly, having a chronic condition myself it’s among my biggest question marks for returning.
I’ve worked on MS for 5+ years, current drugs (e.g., Roche’s Ocrevus, their biggest seller) are gamechangers in terms of long-term efficacy.
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