Recovery from Cancer | Petition of Parent to US

[Lil bear 3,842]

6 minutes ago, SusieQQQ said:

Not much comfort when you’re going bankrupt though. I never understand why people with conditions like that would move from a universal healthcare system to the US under the current healthcare system, especially when even these current benefits keep getting attacked by certain politicians. Hopefully OP’s parent stays in remission and none of this affects them.

Yep. Totally agree with you .. having said that , we did make that move .. but we already had 36 SS quarters so knew we would get SS and Medicare after a few years. We are both now on original Medicare with a very good supplement policy …. cost is about what we would have paid in Australia for our universal cover plus optional private cover. Why ? 12000 miles is a long way from our kids and now 8 grandkids.. 15 down to 2 weeks. Life is so much richer being able to “do life” with them 

Edited June 21, 2022 by Lil bear

[SusieQQQ 11,585]

2 hours ago, Lil bear said:

Yep. Totally agree with you .. having said that , we did make that move .. but we already had 36 SS quarters so knew we would get SS and Medicare after a few years. We are both now on original Medicare with a very good supplement policy …. cost is about what we would have paid in Australia for our universal cover plus optional private cover. Why ? 12000 miles is a long way from our kids and now 8 grandkids.. 15 down to 2 weeks. Life is so much richer being able to “do life” with them 

Beinh able to be on full Medicare makes a huge difference. Someone immigrating as retired or nearly so is in a totally different position - that’s what I was referring to, but I see reading back that wasn’t clear.

[Lil bear 3,842]

Just now, SusieQQQ said:

Beinh able to be on full Medicare makes a huge difference. Someone immigrating as retired or nearly so is in a totally different position - that’s what I was referring to, but I see reading back that wasn’t clear.

No i did understand your point !! We were in a unique position that, although we were in our 60s when we immigrated this time, we had 9 years of SS from 25 years before when we were in the US the first time.  So we were in the unusual position of immigrating ( for the second time)  around retirement age but still expecting to be on Medicare not long after we arrived.. Very few older immigrants have that opportunity .. i budgeted $25000 per year for each of us for every year we were not on Medicare. Fortunately my husband got work and not only completed the 40 quarters but it gave us employer provided insurance for the 3 years until we were both 65 and able to receive Medicare.  

[SalishSea 16,845]

6 hours ago, Boiler said:

None of the ACA plans are that much or close

$1k/ month per parent just for premiums is quite normal.   Plus, the costs of things not covered at 100%.   
 

Medical bankruptcies are quite prevalent in the US.  I see it firsthand.

[Lil bear 3,842]

7 hours ago, Boiler said:

None of the ACA plans are that much or close

Last quote i got was 2 years ago for 65yr old female .. silver ACA plan .. premium of  $1700 per month with a $10k deductible. This meant i needed to plan $25k out of pocket before the plan started paying on any significant event 

[Rlewis 73]

Someone said somewhere your parent loses Canadian healthcare coverage once they move and that is true. Not sure for other provinces but I came from SK, and you had to live in SK at least 6 months in a year to be able to maintain your healthcare coverage. 

 

Goodluck!

[Lil bear 3,842]

14 minutes ago, Rlewis said:

Someone said somewhere your parent loses Canadian healthcare coverage once they move and that is true. Not sure for other provinces but I came from SK, and you had to live in SK at least 6 months in a year to be able to maintain your healthcare coverage. 

 

Goodluck!

Most countries with universal health care have limitations on non resident but citizen using the “free” care .. i know Australia, Canada and UK do

[Rlewis 73]

13 minutes ago, Lil bear said:

Most countries with universal health care have limitations on non resident but citizen using the “free” care .. i know Australia, Canada and UK do

As a Canadian citizen it was true for me. For the specific province. Had to maintain residency IN said province for at least 6 months in a year to be able to keep the health coverage activated. Otherwise no. However whenever I return I can always re-activate it again since I am a citizen. Not sure about PR holders though...

[Lil bear 3,842]

7 minutes ago, Rlewis said:

As a Canadian citizen it was true for me. For the specific province. Had to maintain residency IN said province for at least 6 months in a year to be able to keep the health coverage activated. Otherwise no. However whenever I return I can always re-activate it again since I am a citizen. Not sure about PR holders though...

Even as an Aust citizen, after 5 years of overseas residency I would need to show evidence of returning to reside in Australia in order to be able to get back into the health system .. so now i get medical travel insurance when I go to visit my parents. Fortunately Aust health care is both excellent and affordable .. an out of pocket drs visit will cost me $70… 

Edited June 21, 2022 by Lil bear

[Rlewis 73]

1 minute ago, Lil bear said:

Even as an Aust citizen, after 5 years of overseas residency I would need to show evidence of returning to reside in Australia in order to be able to get back into the health system .. so now i get medical travel insurance when I go to visit my parents. Fortunately Aust health care is both excellent and affordable .. an out of pocket drs visit will cost me $70… 

Wonderful, but unrelated to OP's post for Canada.

[Lil bear 3,842]

4 minutes ago, Rlewis said:

Wonderful, but unrelated to OP's post for Canada.

Yep. 

[shakeyy 78]

My parents had lost healthcare in Alberta because of failure to meet residency obligations. Had to move back to the Philippines because of my dad who had to be in a tropical climate. In a perfect world, they should have just stayed up there, but the cold is not his friend. It was  affecting his health (not life threatening just arthritis) but it was enough pain that wasn't worth it anymore. It was a difficult choice for us to get them off Canada. Stay there and get access to free healthcare but deteriorate healthwise. They could easily go back as I still have siblings there, but again, we are going back to original problem of why they moved out.

 

Since I moved to florida, I thought of bringing them here because of the weather. Like lil-bear had said, Philippines is a long way to visit. 

 

I was willing to pay for insurance, what I didn't expect it will be that much  30,000 per year is crazy.

 

I had paid out of pocket for all her cancer treatments but was in PH and not in Canada.

 

Edited June 21, 2022 by shakeyy

[Lil bear 3,842]

5 minutes ago, shakeyy said:

My parents had lost healthcare in Alberta because of failure to meet residency obligations. Had to move back to the Philippines because of my dad who had to be in a tropical climate. In a perfect world, they should have just stayed up there, but the cold is not his friend. It was  affecting his health (not life threatening just arthritis) but it was enough pain that wasn't worth it anymore. It was a difficult choice for us to get them off Canada. Stay there and get access to free healthcare but deteriorate healthwise. They could easily go back as I still have siblings there, but again, we are going back to original problem of why they moved out.

 

Since I moved to florida, I thought of bringing them here because of the weather. Like lil-bear had said, Philippines is a long way to visit. 

 

I was willing to pay for insurance, what I didn't expect it will be that much  30,000 per year is crazy.

 

I had paid out of pocket for all her cancer treatments but was in PH and not in Canada.

 

These are really hard decisions.. every decision or choice  brings some losses and grief.  

[Boiler 43,666]

Love these threads. A couple of pages of comments based on one scenario and it turns out to be another 

 

Canada well a lot depends if they have their residency status and do not know how that works I do know not easy to sponsor parents

 

US easy to sponsor parents but do not think Florida is generous with benefits, I would imagine they would get Medicaid in say California 

[Mike E 11,725]

With ACA you can

 

* buy plans with high premiums that cover everything, and if you don’t get sick, you’ve blown a lot of money. 

 

* buy plans that don’t cost much, and if you don’t get sick, you’ve saved your money and if you do get sick, your spend the same amount of money.  
 

People discussing the cost of health care on the market place should get a grasp of the concepts of deductibles and out of pocket maximums. They should also understand that people with low modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) get a premium subsidy.  MAGIs of  new immigrants over age 50 tends to be low, often zero.  

 

These universal health care systems in other countries aren’t free. They come at a cost: higher taxes.  The tax burden is less in the USA.  Even if you were paying low income taxes in your previous country (because you had low income) still you were paying value added tax versus state sales tax.  I’ll take a California or New York sales tax over a European VAT any day

 

This is all said, everybody I know who has Medicaid considers it to be the greatest thing ever. I mean what’s not to like:

 

* access to the most technologically advanced health care in world history

 

* out pocket cost: generally up to 5 percent of income  

 

So if an immigrant can legally qualify for Medicaid, get it.  Shop for the right state.