[KiranRao0]

As a Canadian living in the US, here is my experience:

Advantages

  - Higher Salaries (as a SWE, but similar for friends in other high skill professions)  
  - Faster, more accessible healthcare 
  - Easier access to COVID vaccines/boosters
  - Access to more products/services
  - Amazon has everything
  - Better credit card perks

Disadvantages

  - Actually using healthcare is expensive
  - Losing my job is insanely scary (losing healthcare) 
  - Way more advertisements (billboards, credit card offers, drug ads) 
  - Banking is way more fragmented
  - The wealth gap is visibly wider (rich areas are slightly nicer, poor areas are far worse)

[dataflow]

> Losing my job is insanely scary (losing healthcare)

While this might be unusual, as I understand it, nothing really prevents you from getting your own insurance. Even if your health insurance premium were to cost $1000/month (which it likely doesn't), if your pay bump would be > $12k/year (+ tax) by moving as a SWE (which it probably would be), you could still go without a job for a whole year and still maintain your insurance. It would obviously be infeasible for someone in a profession with much lower income, but from what you said it sounds like it would be an option.

[Broken_Hippo]

It has been a while since I've lived in the US, but I think it is completely possible to pay $1000/month for health insurance. For a single person, a family is more. Employers subsidize your insurance, after all. I was paying couple hundred a month for two people - subsidized - and that was years ago. A family plan was even more.

Even then, you have to have money to use it. On top of the insurance premiums, you'll have to pay a deductible. You'll probably pay $3000 (more or less) before the insurance even starts to pay anything, and then you'll have to pay a few thousand more before things start being free.

Prescriptions probably won't count towards these totals. If you are lucky, you will have good coverage. If not, you might be out a few hundred a month for a single drug. Depending. I mean, people have been rationing insulin.

[heavyset_go]

> It has been a while since I've lived in the US, but I think it is completely possible to pay $1000/month for health insurance.

I just looked on healthcare.gov, and any plan that is comparable to a plan an employer would give you costs over $900 a month in premiums alone. The plans start to get "good", if you can call them that, at $1k. The last time I used COBRA, my premiums were $2k.

[dataflow]

Oh, for a family it can definitely be more; I was citing numbers for a single person. For a single person it depends on your age I think. If you're young then it doesn't need to be anywhere near that high, but it of course gets higher as you get older.

[Broken_Hippo]

It'll be barely below $1k for a single person, no matter the age, and it'll be considerably worse than employer-provided insurance. Young folks generally cannot afford health care, even with insurance.

[digianarchist]

Most Canadians would have to leave if they didn’t have another job anyway for visa reasons. Those 60 days would be difficult though. I’m assuming non-US citizens or PRs can’t use COBRA?

[KiranRao0]

Partially. Depending on the Visa, Canadians need to leave within n days. However, it's extremely easy to re-enter as a visitor (B-2) and stay for 6 months.

Canadians are eligible for COBRA if they've earned income within the year. https://theea.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Whenisanemploye...