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Healthcare for new immigrants

Amazing post Simon! Very informative!
I lived in Canada for several years where I had absolutely free health care. Now I'm living in Malaysia where it's not free but considerably cheap and affordable (a $300 plan/year gives you a very good coverage). Coming from these affordable health care systems to the USA shows a big gap which we, new immigrants, need to be aware of.
Thanks for putting it up Simon.
 
Simon, nice informative post.
Not wanting to assume you are going to do everyone's homework for them - but a suggestion, a paragraph telling new immigrants how long they have to get onto a plan etc might be useful.

Interesting to see you can decline your employer's healthcare plan in the US. Where I am now, you usually have to join the plan your employer is on unless your spouse (and his/her employer) is on a different one that you are a dependent of.
 
SusieQQQ said:
Simon, nice informative post.
Not wanting to assume you are going to do everyone's homework for them - but a suggestion, a paragraph telling new immigrants how long they have to get onto a plan etc might be useful.

Interesting to see you can decline your employer's healthcare plan in the US. Where I am now, you usually have to join the plan your employer is on unless your spouse (and his/her employer) is on a different one that you are a dependent of.
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Thanks for that suggestion SusieQQQ, I will add something about that. I will also add a comparison of my employer choices and the other types of plans, dental and vision etc that I was offered.

I will also confirm that I had the option to waive coverage - but yeah I am pretty certain I could have done so.
 
That's now very informative from you simon, thank you so much.
I'm still stuck with my ssn, hopefuly will get it this coming week.
 
Sm1smom said:
Did you already visit your nearest SSA office to enquire about the SSN?
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Yes mom, I was there last week already, they said you have to wait 3 weeks, given that, I have now a week left since I activated my GC on the 26th of last month.
But I'm gonna pay them a visit tomorrow just to hear ...
 
vladek15425 said:
Yes mom, I was there last week already, they said you have to wait 3 weeks, given that, I have now a week left since I activated my GC on the 26th of last month.
But I'm gonna pay them a visit tomorrow just to hear ...
Click to expand...

I guess there was no application in the system when you visited, right? Did you go ahead and submit a new one?
 
Never myself, nor a member of my family had to pay a fee to visit a doctor or to have a procedure done, an MRI or to visit emergency room and that is both in the old country and the UK. Also never experienced the mythical long waiting times, bad doctors or outdated equipment. Not saying that it's perfect here but the US system is scary!!! Seriously scary! I have never been worried in my life that the national insurance that I pay every month won't cover procedures that I might need. When people are sick they need help. It should be that simple.

They made a business out of people's health and the only purpose of a business is to keep shareholders happy and that means makin money!!!!!

Your blog post gave me a lot to think about. Maybe the Land of The Free isn't for uncle Franky after all ?????? :confused: I thought I knew a bit about US healthcare but I was obviously wrong.

How can people live there, knowing that their insurance and income might not be enough to help their children or spouses??

Crazy stuffffffffff!
 
Franky, this is a country with a lot of poverty, and there were around 30 million people without health insurance prior to Obamacare. People in that position would get emergency medical treatment but YouTube is littered with videos of people doing their own dentistry or medical procedures. It is horrible for sure, but there are also a lot of happier stories about people helping those in need.

Things are going to get better, but there are many in this country that still think each person has to fend for themselves. So, if you don't agree with that, you find a way to help. You would be amazed at how communities help those less fortunate here. It's just a shame that a country with so much wealth has so many in need of help...
 
Its worth to emphasize that two hospitals / health centers placed within couple of blocks between each other might charge you quite different amount of money for the very same procedure, so its worth to know the local providers however it's very unlikely that one would do a research while needing immediate attention for himself or the family member.

Also as far as I understand there is a common practice to be assigned to so called in-network healthcare providers to which insured person is directed by his insurer, if you know good local specialist who is on the out of network list of your insurer you will be likely charged extra money if you decide to use this one out instead of in network medical providers (some of them might be worse than others tos ay the least).

Simon, I have a question though is there currently an upper limit of overall claim cost for each policy being it private one or employer based.
As far as i know two major improvements which Obamacare brought to life is no upper limit for a policy compensation and removal of precondition
checking.
 
franko said:
Never myself, nor a member of my family had to pay a fee to visit a doctor or to have a procedure done, an MRI or to visit emergency room and that is both in the old country and the UK. Also never experienced the mythical long waiting times, bad doctors or outdated equipment. Not saying that it's perfect here but the US system is scary!!! Seriously scary! I have never been worried in my life that the national insurance that I pay every month won't cover procedures that I might need. When people are sick they need help. It should be that simple.

They made a business out of people's health and the only purpose of a business is to keep shareholders happy and that means makin money!!!!!

Your blog post gave me a lot to think about. Maybe the Land of The Free isn't for uncle Franky after all ?????? :confused: I thought I knew a bit about US healthcare but I was obviously wrong.

How can people live there, knowing that their insurance and income might not be enough to help their children or spouses??

Crazy stuffffffffff!
Click to expand...

Franko, just few more words of cautions ...

this is (the insurance cost) just the beginning, family with children - like mine- will likely spend the full "Annual deductible" amount of money,
i can say that based of experience, I have one child ill after another during the "winter" season, nothing serious, but enough to count 10-15 doctor
visits couple of procedure, and dozens of prescriptions.

Now, if you have or plan to have children, schools are next, depending on the area you might need to send child to private school
starting from the primary level (we are not even talking about university here) assuming you care about their future (who doesn't though).

On top of that i did a little research on the basic cost of leaving - Northeast coast - base stuff - just to keep things rolling.
It looks like you might need just about $5K NET monthly to get through - no perks, or extra money on "disaster recovery" included,
which means that $75K of yearly family income gives you - guess what - nothing, so you might need good 6 figures salary probably
to have / maintain that "quality" of life in US.

You can read about this here:
http://britishexpats.com/forum/usa-57/how-much-enough-–-northeast-844771/
so Land of The Free gives you that freedom eventually - assuming you have a quite fat wallet .....
 
franko said:
How can people live there, knowing that their insurance and income might not be enough to help their children or spouses??

Crazy stuffffffffff!
Click to expand...

Not everyone comes from the same kind of healthcare background you do, Franko. Where I come from, you get free or almost free but (almost overwhelmingly) bad public healthcare (sometimes downright terrible - as in people dying due to negligence) or you get private insurance and care which while not as expensive as the US in straight USD translation terms is much more expensive compared to incomes here.

And schools,,, well here anyone who can afford it sends kids to private school because most of the public schools, not all but most, are bad - and public schools are not free here and the really good ones are almost as expensive as private schools. Again private schools not as expensive as the U.S. in usd terms but much more in terms of average income.

So I guess I have different views on things like this because I come from a place where if you want decent services that are supposed to be public you always have to pay for private anyway. Oh this includes security by the way with almost everyone subscribing to armed response companies, and security guards in our street for example. Even some of the police stations have armed response from private companies... Yes I will happily pay more for healthcare for my kids to live a normal life not surrounded by high walls and private security. But I realise for those from western countries this choice is not so stark.

I agree with bonio you probably want a six figure income for a decent living standard.
 
Sm1smom said:
I guess there was no application in the system when you visited, right? Did you go ahead and submit a new one?
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He refused to check if there is any application, he said I must wait 3 weeks, than I can re apply if I dont receive it yet.
I even filled forms for me and my family members but he just refused to even look at it...
 
Mom, simon....
Lots of my community here in usa, ask for social aid, they get baby food all of this kind of stuff.... but than I heard it might get you in trouble when you apply for your citizen ship is it so?
 
Yes there is an upper limit of 6600 (from the top of my head) so that is the max out if pocket someone can be charged if they have insurance, even on the cheapest plans. That is a good thing.

The preexisting condition thing was a huge deal. It really helps people who would have been priced out of coverage before.

It is said that young healthy people are going to be paying for older, sicker people. To some that sounds horribly unfair. To me, that sounds like the way a society is supposed to behave.
 
vladek15425 said:
Mom, simon....
Lots of my community here in usa, ask for social aid, they get baby food all of this kind of stuff.... but than I heard it might get you in trouble when you apply for your citizen ship is it so?
Click to expand...

Not all types of assistance will cause an issue. I think Mom has good detail about that.
 
vladek15425 said:
He refused to check if there is any application, he said I must wait 3 weeks, than I can re apply if I dont receive it yet.
I even filled forms for me and my family members but he just refused to even look at it...
Click to expand...

See a different officer, even go to a different office.
 
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