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Author Topic: Anyone here ever seriously consider moving or move out the the USA?  (Read 16440 times)

jhkim

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Re: Anyone here ever seriously consider moving or move out the the USA?
« Reply #75 on: May 26, 2021, 02:04:39 PM »
  I have watched a few people die pretty horrible deaths hooked to machines the past few years.  Luckily for a couple of them their families took a proper course of action.  The other ones...it was not great.  I recently got a chance to yet again see it when My mother died a few months ago (she had some health issues, and honestly probably did not visit her doctor due to rampant Covid fears...which  though anectdotal, I know 14 people who have had covid, 2 had to go to the hospital, all recovered.  My mother who was feared away from going anywhere near medical facilities because of raging covid fears spread daily, died because she had sprung a leak so to speak and did not get it checked out) and the last month was pretty fucking horrible. 

    I do not get to choose how I came into the world, but I do get a small say in how I go out.  I have made my say.

So sorry to hear about your mother, oggsmash. My condolences. My parents have been mindful about setting up living wills and are managing their estates with an eye towards moving on. I haven't for myself, but I probably should even though I'm in good health.


   I agree obviously, and when a nation like the USA constantly goes on and on about universal health care, but can not be bothered to ensure schools have mandatory physical education for every grade, says a whole lot.   I think a PE teacher at every school in the USA is probably massively cheaper than perpetual treatment of chronic issues caused by being fat and inactive.  So, if this is being missed by the galaxy brains running the country, I have to think they are too stupid to see the obvious, or they simply prefer a population to be Fat, sick, and tired, because they are much easier to control.

I'm all in favor of having a PE teacher at every school. My son had a constant PE requirement when he was growing up in California, as did I growing up in New York. I looked up about PE standards, and this report has a chart state-by-state on page 23. I think it would help to have stronger national standards, because it looks like the major problem is some states have weaker requirements than others.

https://www.shapeamerica.org/advocacy/son/2016/upload/Shape-of-the-Nation-2016_web.pdf

It seems to me that this is a lack on both sides. The U.S. population is more obese than other First World countries *and* we don't have the universal health care that all other First World countries do. There are plenty of things that the U.S. does well, but this isn't one of them.

oggsmash

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Re: Anyone here ever seriously consider moving or move out the the USA?
« Reply #76 on: May 26, 2021, 02:13:47 PM »
I think that issue lies not so much with a universal health care, but with health care costs that have broken through a top end point that is not justifiable in the USA. 
You don't think that these two things are related?

  I do not.  I would accept a direct cause and correlation if someone could put it together, but I think the high costs are going to have a whole bunch of factors.  I mean, if your position is a government control or regulation would somehow make it cheaper....Last I checked those F-35 fighter planes are in no way cheap, and that is a full on government pork program.  I have no reason or evidence to in any way believe the government taking over health care at this point will look in any way like a "cheaper" or better solution.  If you have evidence I am willing to take a look at it.   I can not think of a single thing the government has taken over and controlled federally in the USA that ended up being run cheaper and more efficiently.   Seems that opens the door to "contractors" to get filthy rich. 

   

oggsmash

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Re: Anyone here ever seriously consider moving or move out the the USA?
« Reply #77 on: May 26, 2021, 02:29:56 PM »
  I have watched a few people die pretty horrible deaths hooked to machines the past few years.  Luckily for a couple of them their families took a proper course of action.  The other ones...it was not great.  I recently got a chance to yet again see it when My mother died a few months ago (she had some health issues, and honestly probably did not visit her doctor due to rampant Covid fears...which  though anectdotal, I know 14 people who have had covid, 2 had to go to the hospital, all recovered.  My mother who was feared away from going anywhere near medical facilities because of raging covid fears spread daily, died because she had sprung a leak so to speak and did not get it checked out) and the last month was pretty fucking horrible. 

    I do not get to choose how I came into the world, but I do get a small say in how I go out.  I have made my say.

So sorry to hear about your mother, oggsmash. My condolences. My parents have been mindful about setting up living wills and are managing their estates with an eye towards moving on. I haven't for myself, but I probably should even though I'm in good health.


   I agree obviously, and when a nation like the USA constantly goes on and on about universal health care, but can not be bothered to ensure schools have mandatory physical education for every grade, says a whole lot.   I think a PE teacher at every school in the USA is probably massively cheaper than perpetual treatment of chronic issues caused by being fat and inactive.  So, if this is being missed by the galaxy brains running the country, I have to think they are too stupid to see the obvious, or they simply prefer a population to be Fat, sick, and tired, because they are much easier to control.

I'm all in favor of having a PE teacher at every school. My son had a constant PE requirement when he was growing up in California, as did I growing up in New York. I looked up about PE standards, and this report has a chart state-by-state on page 23. I think it would help to have stronger national standards, because it looks like the major problem is some states have weaker requirements than others.

https://www.shapeamerica.org/advocacy/son/2016/upload/Shape-of-the-Nation-2016_web.pdf

It seems to me that this is a lack on both sides. The U.S. population is more obese than other First World countries *and* we don't have the universal health care that all other First World countries do. There are plenty of things that the U.S. does well, but this isn't one of them.


  Thank you.   Sorting through her stuff and getting her affairs in order has been....well an experience.  I suggest everyone on here have a will and a living will. 

   As to the states and their PE reqs, reading through that document, they all suck pretty bad now.   Even Cali and NY (Cali used to have a fantastic phys ed program, but I guess it, like the school system in general is in the shitter) only require 2 years of PE classes for high schoolers.   Lots of states only require one, and I am fairly sure there are a few with none (I was only scanning 6 or so).  To me that is terrible.  But, we also do not teach personal finance as a required area of study either and then act confused when people in general cannot absorb an emergency arising that costs 1000 dollars.  Yet so many of those same people have expensive phones, data plans, and credit cards.  US culture is in need of a reboot.

    I normally do not feel ANY policy should be centrally planned, but if the CDC can pretend COvid is a national threat, it sure seems pushing physical fitness for the nation would be the main thing they should go on and on about all day, every day.  That can not prevent everything, but it sure is the one thing most people have full control over and should be taught and encouraged to take full control over it.

Pat
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Re: Anyone here ever seriously consider moving or move out the the USA?
« Reply #78 on: May 26, 2021, 11:36:06 PM »
Pat - wouldn't doing away with the horrible third party payer structure be a part of restructuring?

I'm not saying that it's simple. I don't know how we get from our current structure to a better system, but it seems like an important thing to get more research into and develop agreement on.
Restructure generally means you shuffle a few things around. This is more a gutting.

And why bother to develop an agreement? We're in the era where everything gets passed on party-line votes. "Bipartisanship" is a word people use to attack the other side for not agreeing with them.

Why bother to talk here at all? I'll admit I'm amused by a few zingers, but trading petty insults gets dull really quick, I find.

It's more interesting to hear what people's actual opinions are, and talk to them like human beings.
There are more options than developing a political consensus in a two-party system and trading insults.

You should know, you mentioned one of them: Talk like humans. The idea that everything has to be insult or in service to Orwell or Huxley is why it so rarely happens.

Pat
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Re: Anyone here ever seriously consider moving or move out the the USA?
« Reply #79 on: May 26, 2021, 11:46:45 PM »
   As to the states and their PE reqs, reading through that document, they all suck pretty bad now.   Even Cali and NY (Cali used to have a fantastic phys ed program, but I guess it, like the school system in general is in the shitter) only require 2 years of PE classes for high schoolers.   Lots of states only require one, and I am fairly sure there are a few with none (I was only scanning 6 or so).  To me that is terrible.  But, we also do not teach personal finance as a required area of study either and then act confused when people in general cannot absorb an emergency arising that costs 1000 dollars.  Yet so many of those same people have expensive phones, data plans, and credit cards.  US culture is in need of a reboot.

    I normally do not feel ANY policy should be centrally planned, but if the CDC can pretend COvid is a national threat, it sure seems pushing physical fitness for the nation would be the main thing they should go on and on about all day, every day.  That can not prevent everything, but it sure is the one thing most people have full control over and should be taught and encouraged to take full control over it.
Why not do it at the state level? That allows 50 laboratories of physical fitness, which the other states can mock or copy, instead of 1 solution that will ossify and resist change.

Agree on personal finance. Cover budgets, ledgers, loans, credit, investments, retirement, etc. For that matter, in a similar vein, have PE cover personal health. The healthcare system is crazy enough that a class on the structure of the system and how to navigate it is probably just as important, and might even improve public debates in 20 years. (Or not, given the state of the educational system.)

oggsmash

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Re: Anyone here ever seriously consider moving or move out the the USA?
« Reply #80 on: May 27, 2021, 02:08:30 PM »
   As to the states and their PE reqs, reading through that document, they all suck pretty bad now.   Even Cali and NY (Cali used to have a fantastic phys ed program, but I guess it, like the school system in general is in the shitter) only require 2 years of PE classes for high schoolers.   Lots of states only require one, and I am fairly sure there are a few with none (I was only scanning 6 or so).  To me that is terrible.  But, we also do not teach personal finance as a required area of study either and then act confused when people in general cannot absorb an emergency arising that costs 1000 dollars.  Yet so many of those same people have expensive phones, data plans, and credit cards.  US culture is in need of a reboot.

    I normally do not feel ANY policy should be centrally planned, but if the CDC can pretend COvid is a national threat, it sure seems pushing physical fitness for the nation would be the main thing they should go on and on about all day, every day.  That can not prevent everything, but it sure is the one thing most people have full control over and should be taught and encouraged to take full control over it.
Why not do it at the state level? That allows 50 laboratories of physical fitness, which the other states can mock or copy, instead of 1 solution that will ossify and resist change.

Agree on personal finance. Cover budgets, ledgers, loans, credit, investments, retirement, etc. For that matter, in a similar vein, have PE cover personal health. The healthcare system is crazy enough that a class on the structure of the system and how to navigate it is probably just as important, and might even improve public debates in 20 years. (Or not, given the state of the educational system.)

  I have some suspicions that the difference between many states are likely long past times where many of the school age kids were working on farms either in their family or friends of family and got plenty of exercise.    The thing about physical fitness, is the laboratory has already been going for a century now.  We know how to give a variety of exercises to keep people fit.  I think the biggest issue is with high school age kids there is only a 0-2 year requirement over the 4 years they are in high school.  Lower grades tend to not have very structured programs and often have no actual PE teachers at a school, and the time period is often simply a box checked with a teacher taking kids outside and letting them do as they wish. 

   I would maybe go along with some fairly loose guidelines about number of years kids have to get PE though.  Almost any change is going to be for the better at this point.

jhkim

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Re: Anyone here ever seriously consider moving or move out the the USA?
« Reply #81 on: May 27, 2021, 02:37:56 PM »
  I have some suspicions that the difference between many states are likely long past times where many of the school age kids were working on farms either in their family or friends of family and got plenty of exercise.    The thing about physical fitness, is the laboratory has already been going for a century now.  We know how to give a variety of exercises to keep people fit.  I think the biggest issue is with high school age kids there is only a 0-2 year requirement over the 4 years they are in high school.  Lower grades tend to not have very structured programs and often have no actual PE teachers at a school, and the time period is often simply a box checked with a teacher taking kids outside and letting them do as they wish. 

   I would maybe go along with some fairly loose guidelines about number of years kids have to get PE though.  Almost any change is going to be for the better at this point.

I haven't followed PE closely, but my son had a regular amount of hours per week exercise in lower grades - which is the California standard. It's true that there wasn't a dedicated PE teacher, but that's normal for all subjects in lower grades. There aren't dedicated math teachers or science teachers either. Instead, the teachers are generalists whose main focus is on knowing about education and child development. PE wasn't just free play time - they had required physical activity for regular periods.

I don't know how well other schools in the state compare, but my experience is that it was pretty good in my local schools. (I have a lot of other problems with schools, but this wasn't one of them.) I think requiring 4 years instead of 2 years in high school would be reasonable. Obesity is still absolutely a problem in California, but we do have a relatively low obesity rate compared to other states.


Source: https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/prevalence-maps.html

I know a lot of states don't have physical activity time as a requirement, which should be fixed - plus if there are schools in state that are lax about the requirements, those also need fixing. The physical activity improves their academic learning too.

For schools like my local schools that have required PE, though, I would push for better nutrition more than requiring even further PE. The tons of junk food they're consuming is an even bigger problem than lack of activity.
« Last Edit: May 27, 2021, 02:40:17 PM by jhkim »

oggsmash

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Re: Anyone here ever seriously consider moving or move out the the USA?
« Reply #82 on: May 27, 2021, 02:44:04 PM »
  I have some suspicions that the difference between many states are likely long past times where many of the school age kids were working on farms either in their family or friends of family and got plenty of exercise.    The thing about physical fitness, is the laboratory has already been going for a century now.  We know how to give a variety of exercises to keep people fit.  I think the biggest issue is with high school age kids there is only a 0-2 year requirement over the 4 years they are in high school.  Lower grades tend to not have very structured programs and often have no actual PE teachers at a school, and the time period is often simply a box checked with a teacher taking kids outside and letting them do as they wish. 

   I would maybe go along with some fairly loose guidelines about number of years kids have to get PE though.  Almost any change is going to be for the better at this point.

I haven't followed PE closely, but my son had a regular amount of hours per week exercise in lower grades - which is the California standard. It's true that there wasn't a dedicated PE teacher, but that's normal for all subjects in lower grades. There aren't dedicated math teachers or science teachers either. Instead, the teachers are generalists whose main focus is on knowing about education and child development. PE wasn't just free play time - they had required physical activity for regular periods.

I don't know how well other schools in the state compare, but my experience is that it was pretty good in my local schools. (I have a lot of other problems with schools, but this wasn't one of them.) I think requiring 4 years instead of 2 years in high school would be reasonable. Obesity is still absolutely a problem in California, but we do have a relatively low obesity rate compared to other states.


Source: https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/prevalence-maps.html

I know a lot of states don't have physical activity time as a requirement, which should be fixed - plus if there are schools in state that are lax about the requirements, those also need fixing. The physical activity improves their academic learning too.

For schools like my local schools that have required PE, though, I would push for better nutrition more than requiring even further PE. The tons of junk food they're consuming is an even bigger problem than lack of activity.

  Most schools require it for lower grades in most states.  The drop offs seem to start in Middle schools, and really hit the wall in High school, when you are trying to program people for young adult hood.    Better nutrition sounds great, but massive multinational corporations make INSANE amounts of money getting kids hooked on junk food for life.  Strange to me the cigarette makers were lambasted for selling their poison to kids, but junk food (which KILLS MORE PEOPLE)... no problemo. 

     The nutrition would help of course, but that IMO is a parenting issue.  Lots of parents just fucking suck.  full stop.

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Re: Anyone here ever seriously consider moving or move out the the USA?
« Reply #83 on: May 27, 2021, 07:17:39 PM »
Have you ever been bankrupted by medical bills?

  Have you?  I do know a fellow, back in the 90's who went to India for a heart procedure that here was going to cost him possibly up to 3/4 of a million dollars for total care and costs.  He got the same thing done in India for a grand total of 10k (including air fare and 1 month stay for follow up care). 

  I think that issue lies not so much with a universal health care, but with health care costs that have broken through a top end point that is not justifiable in the USA. 

  I would also say I can not see a situation where I could be bankrupted from health care costs for me.  I would check out before bankrupting family to keep a husk of me alive.

Before Covid health-tourists would often come to uruguay to get dental work done. In uruguay the dentists are very good, and also remarkably cheap (a routine cleaning/check up runs about $25USD, which is the only number I know because I've gone my entire life without a single cavity and still have all my teeth, but anyways bigger surgeries are often hugely less expensive than in other parts of the world). For some people, the cost of the flight+surgery in Uruguay was still cheaper than the surgery in their own country.

Also, Uruguay  has great health care for pay, which is way better than the service I ever got with Canada's "Free" health care that you still had to pay for if you had any decent salary. In Alberta in the early 2000sI was paying something like $100CDN (say, $75USD) per month for "free" health care that included huge waiting periods and dubious attention.

In Uruguay I'm paying about $75USD today in 2021, for service that includes being able to call a doctor to come make a house call to me anytime I want as often as I want at no added charge. Plus of course hospital service (which is a great hospital; I've fortunately only been hospitalized in it once for a few days but the service was spectacular, even the freaking hospital food was delicious!), and a very large discount on prescriptions.
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Re: Anyone here ever seriously consider moving or move out the the USA?
« Reply #84 on: May 27, 2021, 08:17:05 PM »
Have you ever been bankrupted by medical bills?

  Have you?  I do know a fellow, back in the 90's who went to India for a heart procedure that here was going to cost him possibly up to 3/4 of a million dollars for total care and costs.  He got the same thing done in India for a grand total of 10k (including air fare and 1 month stay for follow up care). 

  I think that issue lies not so much with a universal health care, but with health care costs that have broken through a top end point that is not justifiable in the USA. 

  I would also say I can not see a situation where I could be bankrupted from health care costs for me.  I would check out before bankrupting family to keep a husk of me alive.

Before Covid health-tourists would often come to uruguay to get dental work done. In uruguay the dentists are very good, and also remarkably cheap (a routine cleaning/check up runs about $25USD, which is the only number I know because I've gone my entire life without a single cavity and still have all my teeth, but anyways bigger surgeries are often hugely less expensive than in other parts of the world). For some people, the cost of the flight+surgery in Uruguay was still cheaper than the surgery in their own country.

Also, Uruguay  has great health care for pay, which is way better than the service I ever got with Canada's "Free" health care that you still had to pay for if you had any decent salary. In Alberta in the early 2000sI was paying something like $100CDN (say, $75USD) per month for "free" health care that included huge waiting periods and dubious attention.

In Uruguay I'm paying about $75USD today in 2021, for service that includes being able to call a doctor to come make a house call to me anytime I want as often as I want at no added charge. Plus of course hospital service (which is a great hospital; I've fortunately only been hospitalized in it once for a few days but the service was spectacular, even the freaking hospital food was delicious!), and a very large discount on prescriptions.
Now that IS interesting. Usually central/south American healthcare is kind of hit or miss. What's Uruguay doing differently?

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Re: Anyone here ever seriously consider moving or move out the the USA?
« Reply #85 on: May 27, 2021, 10:59:03 PM »
   As to the states and their PE reqs, reading through that document, they all suck pretty bad now.   Even Cali and NY (Cali used to have a fantastic phys ed program, but I guess it, like the school system in general is in the shitter) only require 2 years of PE classes for high schoolers.   Lots of states only require one, and I am fairly sure there are a few with none (I was only scanning 6 or so).  To me that is terrible.  But, we also do not teach personal finance as a required area of study either and then act confused when people in general cannot absorb an emergency arising that costs 1000 dollars.  Yet so many of those same people have expensive phones, data plans, and credit cards.  US culture is in need of a reboot.

    I normally do not feel ANY policy should be centrally planned, but if the CDC can pretend COvid is a national threat, it sure seems pushing physical fitness for the nation would be the main thing they should go on and on about all day, every day.  That can not prevent everything, but it sure is the one thing most people have full control over and should be taught and encouraged to take full control over it.
Why not do it at the state level? That allows 50 laboratories of physical fitness, which the other states can mock or copy, instead of 1 solution that will ossify and resist change.

Agree on personal finance. Cover budgets, ledgers, loans, credit, investments, retirement, etc. For that matter, in a similar vein, have PE cover personal health. The healthcare system is crazy enough that a class on the structure of the system and how to navigate it is probably just as important, and might even improve public debates in 20 years. (Or not, given the state of the educational system.)

Fitness is always helpful but diet is a bigger problem and harder to address since aside from a few idiots there's no real pushback when it comes to promoting fitness but improving the American diet would hurt a lot of people financially that that'd generate a lot of pushback.

Over here in Korea it's been horrific how fast the obesity rate has increased, it's still relatively low among adults but has absolutely exploded in the last two decades among kids to the point that you constantly see families with normal weight adults but obese kids which you'd almost never see in the states. Still well below American levels of course but the rate of increase has just been stunningly fast.

oggsmash

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Re: Anyone here ever seriously consider moving or move out the the USA?
« Reply #86 on: May 28, 2021, 07:57:56 AM »
   As to the states and their PE reqs, reading through that document, they all suck pretty bad now.   Even Cali and NY (Cali used to have a fantastic phys ed program, but I guess it, like the school system in general is in the shitter) only require 2 years of PE classes for high schoolers.   Lots of states only require one, and I am fairly sure there are a few with none (I was only scanning 6 or so).  To me that is terrible.  But, we also do not teach personal finance as a required area of study either and then act confused when people in general cannot absorb an emergency arising that costs 1000 dollars.  Yet so many of those same people have expensive phones, data plans, and credit cards.  US culture is in need of a reboot.

    I normally do not feel ANY policy should be centrally planned, but if the CDC can pretend COvid is a national threat, it sure seems pushing physical fitness for the nation would be the main thing they should go on and on about all day, every day.  That can not prevent everything, but it sure is the one thing most people have full control over and should be taught and encouraged to take full control over it.
Why not do it at the state level? That allows 50 laboratories of physical fitness, which the other states can mock or copy, instead of 1 solution that will ossify and resist change.

Agree on personal finance. Cover budgets, ledgers, loans, credit, investments, retirement, etc. For that matter, in a similar vein, have PE cover personal health. The healthcare system is crazy enough that a class on the structure of the system and how to navigate it is probably just as important, and might even improve public debates in 20 years. (Or not, given the state of the educational system.)

Fitness is always helpful but diet is a bigger problem and harder to address since aside from a few idiots there's no real pushback when it comes to promoting fitness but improving the American diet would hurt a lot of people financially that that'd generate a lot of pushback.

Over here in Korea it's been horrific how fast the obesity rate has increased, it's still relatively low among adults but has absolutely exploded in the last two decades among kids to the point that you constantly see families with normal weight adults but obese kids which you'd almost never see in the states. Still well below American levels of course but the rate of increase has just been stunningly fast.

   I disagree about how hard it would be to improve diet from a practical actual point of view.  It is really, really easy.   It is math, take in less or equal to what you burn up.  The problem is habits form early and they are almost all bad.  It takes 30 days to break a bad habit, and if there is one thing people do not do well in the USA it is stick to discipline and self control, or teach it to their kids.   Now if you are talking about having everyone eat grassfed organic farm to fork food, that will cost.  But that is not needed to keep people from being fat.  Calories are a math problem, and eating LESS is not more expensive.   

    Eating BETTER can be, but is not the real problem.   The problem is people are hooked on sugar and carbs to such a degree that getting away from stuffing their faces with them is going to take a while (30 plus days) and likely some effort on their parts.
« Last Edit: May 28, 2021, 08:00:28 AM by oggsmash »

oggsmash

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Re: Anyone here ever seriously consider moving or move out the the USA?
« Reply #87 on: May 28, 2021, 08:01:52 AM »
Have you ever been bankrupted by medical bills?

  Have you?  I do know a fellow, back in the 90's who went to India for a heart procedure that here was going to cost him possibly up to 3/4 of a million dollars for total care and costs.  He got the same thing done in India for a grand total of 10k (including air fare and 1 month stay for follow up care). 

  I think that issue lies not so much with a universal health care, but with health care costs that have broken through a top end point that is not justifiable in the USA. 

  I would also say I can not see a situation where I could be bankrupted from health care costs for me.  I would check out before bankrupting family to keep a husk of me alive.

Before Covid health-tourists would often come to uruguay to get dental work done. In uruguay the dentists are very good, and also remarkably cheap (a routine cleaning/check up runs about $25USD, which is the only number I know because I've gone my entire life without a single cavity and still have all my teeth, but anyways bigger surgeries are often hugely less expensive than in other parts of the world). For some people, the cost of the flight+surgery in Uruguay was still cheaper than the surgery in their own country.

Also, Uruguay  has great health care for pay, which is way better than the service I ever got with Canada's "Free" health care that you still had to pay for if you had any decent salary. In Alberta in the early 2000sI was paying something like $100CDN (say, $75USD) per month for "free" health care that included huge waiting periods and dubious attention.

In Uruguay I'm paying about $75USD today in 2021, for service that includes being able to call a doctor to come make a house call to me anytime I want as often as I want at no added charge. Plus of course hospital service (which is a great hospital; I've fortunately only been hospitalized in it once for a few days but the service was spectacular, even the freaking hospital food was delicious!), and a very large discount on prescriptions.

   I am down to Ecuador, Uruguay, and looking like Panama.   This sure makes Uruguay look very, very close and if I were planning to be a city dweller it would already be the winner.

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Re: Anyone here ever seriously consider moving or move out the the USA?
« Reply #88 on: May 28, 2021, 11:56:52 PM »
Have you ever been bankrupted by medical bills?

  Have you?  I do know a fellow, back in the 90's who went to India for a heart procedure that here was going to cost him possibly up to 3/4 of a million dollars for total care and costs.  He got the same thing done in India for a grand total of 10k (including air fare and 1 month stay for follow up care). 

  I think that issue lies not so much with a universal health care, but with health care costs that have broken through a top end point that is not justifiable in the USA. 

  I would also say I can not see a situation where I could be bankrupted from health care costs for me.  I would check out before bankrupting family to keep a husk of me alive.

Before Covid health-tourists would often come to uruguay to get dental work done. In uruguay the dentists are very good, and also remarkably cheap (a routine cleaning/check up runs about $25USD, which is the only number I know because I've gone my entire life without a single cavity and still have all my teeth, but anyways bigger surgeries are often hugely less expensive than in other parts of the world). For some people, the cost of the flight+surgery in Uruguay was still cheaper than the surgery in their own country.

Also, Uruguay  has great health care for pay, which is way better than the service I ever got with Canada's "Free" health care that you still had to pay for if you had any decent salary. In Alberta in the early 2000sI was paying something like $100CDN (say, $75USD) per month for "free" health care that included huge waiting periods and dubious attention.

In Uruguay I'm paying about $75USD today in 2021, for service that includes being able to call a doctor to come make a house call to me anytime I want as often as I want at no added charge. Plus of course hospital service (which is a great hospital; I've fortunately only been hospitalized in it once for a few days but the service was spectacular, even the freaking hospital food was delicious!), and a very large discount on prescriptions.
Now that IS interesting. Usually central/south American healthcare is kind of hit or miss. What's Uruguay doing differently?


It has a two-tiered public/private healthcare system. Mind you, it's not perfect, especially since the previous government (socialist/communist) fucked it up by introducing a plan by which people would be tax-subsidized to join the private system. That led to a flood of people joining the Private health-care companies, increasing waiting times and straining services, while at the same time many of those people who joined were not really being helped because they still couldn't afford the things that the government wasn't subsidizing (like specialist fees or exam fees).

Still, though, I find it a better system than either Canada or the USA.
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Re: Anyone here ever seriously consider moving or move out the the USA?
« Reply #89 on: May 29, 2021, 12:01:57 AM »
Have you ever been bankrupted by medical bills?

  Have you?  I do know a fellow, back in the 90's who went to India for a heart procedure that here was going to cost him possibly up to 3/4 of a million dollars for total care and costs.  He got the same thing done in India for a grand total of 10k (including air fare and 1 month stay for follow up care). 

  I think that issue lies not so much with a universal health care, but with health care costs that have broken through a top end point that is not justifiable in the USA. 

  I would also say I can not see a situation where I could be bankrupted from health care costs for me.  I would check out before bankrupting family to keep a husk of me alive.

Before Covid health-tourists would often come to uruguay to get dental work done. In uruguay the dentists are very good, and also remarkably cheap (a routine cleaning/check up runs about $25USD, which is the only number I know because I've gone my entire life without a single cavity and still have all my teeth, but anyways bigger surgeries are often hugely less expensive than in other parts of the world). For some people, the cost of the flight+surgery in Uruguay was still cheaper than the surgery in their own country.

Also, Uruguay  has great health care for pay, which is way better than the service I ever got with Canada's "Free" health care that you still had to pay for if you had any decent salary. In Alberta in the early 2000sI was paying something like $100CDN (say, $75USD) per month for "free" health care that included huge waiting periods and dubious attention.

In Uruguay I'm paying about $75USD today in 2021, for service that includes being able to call a doctor to come make a house call to me anytime I want as often as I want at no added charge. Plus of course hospital service (which is a great hospital; I've fortunately only been hospitalized in it once for a few days but the service was spectacular, even the freaking hospital food was delicious!), and a very large discount on prescriptions.

   I am down to Ecuador, Uruguay, and looking like Panama.   This sure makes Uruguay look very, very close and if I were planning to be a city dweller it would already be the winner.

Well, if you're not planning to be a city dweller, you should consider the cost of land and the laws about non-citizens buying land in each country.
LION & DRAGON: Medieval-Authentic OSR Roleplaying is available now! You only THINK you've played 'medieval fantasy' until you play L&D.


My Blog:  http://therpgpundit.blogspot.com/
The most famous uruguayan gaming blog on the planet!

NEW!
Check out my short OSR supplements series; The RPGPundit Presents!


Dark Albion: The Rose War! The OSR fantasy setting of the history that inspired Shakespeare and Martin alike.
Also available in Variant Cover form!
Also, now with the CULTS OF CHAOS cult-generation sourcebook

ARROWS OF INDRA
Arrows of Indra: The Old-School Epic Indian RPG!
NOW AVAILABLE: AoI in print form

LORDS OF OLYMPUS
The new Diceless RPG of multiversal power, adventure and intrigue, now available.