I’m kind of in a strange boat right now where I’m really comfortable in Canada yet I can’t shake this feeling I need to get over to the US of A in order to take advantage of that strong USD. I, like many Canadians, work for an American firm and have a TN visa. Recently, my employer offered to sponsor me for a green card, if I ever choose to relocate to the USA. I can live pretty much anywhere I want as I’m a remote employee, but I do travel to the USA for client work.
It’s a tough decision to make. While I consider it, I thought I’d ask the community. So, say you good lemmings?
We did it for four years. Washington state in the Seattle are is very nice. We met a lot of great people and we have fond memories.
Having said that it was clear early on this was not going to be permanent. Imagine taking your kids to the local park and seeing a sign that said no guns allowed in this park. Wait, guns are allowed in some parks? WTF. That was just a head scratcher. I found it genuinely hard to be in a place where I was decidedly middle class and so many people were so poor and with no benefits at all.
I remember once chatting with a cashier at the grocery store over the weeks as she was pregnant. One day I stopped seeing her and figured she had her baby. Two weeks later she was back. No maternity leave. She took her full two weeks of vacation and that was it. Shit.
Or the conversation I had with a cab driver who talked about still being in debt because his FIL was sick and avoided getting medical attention because none of the family had medical coverage until he had to be admitted.
The medical system is a confusing shambles of insanity. That’s if you have good coverage. Once our daughter was sick and the childrens hospital directed us to a closer clinic. We went. There was a discussion about possibly admitting her but in the end she went home. A few days later she was worse so we ended up going to the children’s hospital and she was admitted. Turns out the near by clinic was not in our medical coverage group and it cost us nearly $1000 out of pocket. Not fun but doable. The thing is, she was two nights in the hospital where we were covered. If we had admitted her the first day at the wrong hospital it would have cost us at least $10 000.
The whole system is a fucking nightmare of land mines and no one has any clue what any particular thing will cost you.
I just couldn’t be happy under those conditions. Side note I’m not happy with the slide in equality here in Canada either BTW.
My job is in high tech and they pay was no better, just even. We lost money on selling buying houses, but that’s just timing. I kept track of taxes paid. After medical expenses it was only a 5 percent savings and one medical emergency would too that the other way. Yes, I had great medical coverage.
Yeah, I was in Oregon and had really good health insurance, but was always a bit terrified of actually ever using any medical services. It’s so much less worrying to know that the emergency room won’t ever cost you anything in Canada. That said, I’m sure if I did ever need it, it would have been fine.
That’s kinda the problem: in America, ‘preventative’ care is only talked about in past tense, like “wish he’d’ve gotten looked-at before it cost him his 401k AND house as well”.
No one goes for testing, no early warning.