I am pretty early on in my career as a 25 year old financial analyst in Automotive (not committed to industry) located in Toronto, ON - with an AVM (6.5x5.3x3.5cms) in my right parietal lobe that has never bled or ruptured. Based on what I always hear in the industry and what all my undergrad batch mates say, I may be able to get a sizeable increase to my total compensation if I relocated just south of the border but I have always dismissed this due to the foreign world of private healthcare to me.
Recently however, I want to dive into my options a bit deeper - maybe I’m just chasing money, who knows. I took a look into the “Financial & Legal” category we have here to try and understand the common challenges some of us face, and the recurring theme seems to be an uphill battle with health and life insurance companies, the struggles in receiving disability, and preparing a nest egg for emergency medical procedures.
TLDR: I have been lucky to never have to worry about how much my MRIs or emergency visit stays will cost and I’m wondering if anyone has immigrated to the US from Canada and how they managed the transition from public to private healthcare? Is it extremely difficult to get health insurance with a brain AVM? On a yearly average, how much do you spend out of pocket on healthcare not including insurance premiums? Including insurance premiums? Including and not including bleed scare emergencies? Is the pay bump worth it? Am I not considering anything that I should be when thinking about this?
Please send any resources you think may help my way.
Well,I have no idea so I will go out on a limb a bit. I would think the largest block would be the pre-existing piece in gaining any type of medical insurance. I have traveled to the US and received a good rate as an uninsured person.
I know many people who say that the difference in tax rate would pay the cost of health insurance but have never had occasion to examine closer. It may be easy to check with a call or on line estimate, but the pre existing may impact cost. Take Care, John.
While people may have had complaints about “Obamacare”, one of the biggest changes is that people could no longer be denied medical insurance on the basis of pre-existing conditions, nor could they be charged more.
The big advantage to US healthcare is that the wait times are far less. That said, there is also lots of arguing (wasting time) dealing with the insurance company. For what we pay for insurance, I feel like they should be there to help patients out. The last few years, even my excellent health insurance I’ve been having more and more problems with coverage and needing to argue with them.
If you self-pay, the medical offices will usually cut you some slack, but it is still prohibitively expensive in my opinion.
I am also not the most knowledgeable on this. You should be able to get insurance without them knowing of your AVM if you’re a citizen so it wouldn’t impact how much you pay. Even with insurance, the cost of healthcare can still be egregious though relative to other countries. One of my medications (not related to AVM) costs near $100K a year, insurance covers a small fraction of that cost. Luckily there are other foundations and avenues that makes it free for me in the end - the thought of a drug costing someone that much is mind-boggling though. It can be nice, depending on your insurance plan, to choose the hospital/specialist and be able to utilize them versus being forced to a specific practice in the United States.
For other forms of insurance, like life insurance or disability there can be challenges with pre-existing conditions or denial that requires legal assistance.
I work at a U.S. health insurer and my husband is a Canadian American, so my observations may be useful. First, if you’re in finance, you’ve got good job prospects available to you, especially due to shifts in the labor force during the pandemic. I work in finance and, at least in the health insurance industry, many companies have shifted to some form of remote work. You could live just over the border in Buffalo and have the best of both worlds, in some respects, though, not necessarily regarding medical care, due to the difference in payment models. That being said, I’d suggest looking for a large employer (100s or 1000s of employees) because they tend to have better employee benefits (medical & rx, disability, life, retirement, etc). The larger the employer, the more likely they are to offer dental and vision plans, too. If you aren’t a US citizen or permanent resident, and they have to sponsor you for employment, you are typically provided the same benefits as others in your type of position at the company.
The downside: since health/life/disability benefits are tied to your employment, the question is what happens if you get sick and can’t work for some period of time? If you can’t stay employed, the US is not great at providing robust safety net programs and so you have to start paying for health insurance, for example, on your own. Further, without the employment sponsorship, you may lose residency status during a medical event. I hope there are exceptions for folks who are in crisis, but I doubt you’d want to deal with residency issues while getting treatment.
I just happened to get this today as i receive daily “live strong” e-mails, maybe a little more info. As my grandfather used to say, knowledge is power!