The US is very large and diverse, but here are some general rules of thumb:

1) The US Gov doesn't protect much against extreme cases - that's why health insurance (generally through an employer) is important.

2) America is a very, very hard place to be poor.

3) Living like you see on TV (in NYC, LA, SF, etc, or in a cool downtown loft in an urban neighborhood) is insanely expensive and it's only possible if you design your career and life around it.

4) By trading commute time, "coolness"/novelty of neighborhood, and/or school district, and metro area, you can live well on a very reasonable middle class income. Living in Chicago, Charlotte, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, any big city in Texas or Ohio, avoids the super high cost of coastal cities.

IANAL, but as far as getting into the US, if you can have an employer sponsor you, I believe it's much easier than applying on your own. This ... may not be the easiest time to get into the USA.

Thank you all for your responses, that's definitely reassuring though there seems to be a common theme to avoiding poverty cause it's hard to get back on your feet. Well, that's probably true everywhere so...

By the way, when I was talking about going bankrupt I meant despite having health insurance but often you see cases where the insurance only covers accidents that happened 'while on a red or green bus going no more that 30mph at night, full moon required'. Reductio ad absurdum obviously but I think you know what I mean (probably yet another stereotype I have about US).

This shows another feature of life in America - it depends on which "team" you're on. Working for a large employer, especially with a white collar job, you generally get a better policy. While you're insignificant, your employer (who is buying the insurance and defining the policy) is valuable to the insurer, so you're treated better. Same for if your insurance company is a big player in that metro area - they get pricing power vs hospitals and providers so your coverage and exceptions tend to be better.

The crap insurance with lots of exceptions come a) if you're choosing it yourself and paying low premiums, or b) if your employer is less profitable per employee or you're in a low status job (e.g. Wal-Mart offers worse coverage than Google)

Hmm... this contradicts everything everyone else said in this thread. I mean, everyone says that if you have insurance you have no chance of going bankrupt but it is not enough, you have to be insured for enough money in a first place, which I think might not be possible even for non-poor people and that defeats the purpose. And it's very scam prone...

My apologies in advance if that seems overly critical of US, I understand why it might look like it but, truly, it's one of those things I just cannot grasp about living there and that's why I'm asking questions, no malice intended.

I paid accident claims for over 5 years. Only a tiny percentage were a case of wrong place, wrong time, shit happens. The vast majority were either accidents waiting to happen or policy abuse, where policyholders were essentially scamming the company completely legally to cover routine chiropractic visits.

My mother is German. I have lived in Europe. I will suggest that the fact that you are European will likely inoculate you against a lot of worst case scenarios because normal American practices that promote disease and injury simply are not part of your culture.

Diet plays a very large role in disease. Immigrants don't typically start living off of fast food burgers. They continue eating largely like they did at home.

Europeans tend to drink responsibly. They have wine with dinner or drinks with friends at a pub. The US has rampant addiction problems killing people.

If you don't plan to abandon your current healthy lifestyle habits, suddenly start drinking and driving just because you set foot on US soil and otherwise abandoning all common sense as you have known it for your entire life, you probably don't need to fear that taking an American job will trap you in American medical poverty hell with no hope of escape.

You can email me if you want to talk further.

Yeah, I want to talk further, It's 4am in Poland though, would you be willing to postpone it a little bit? Thanks in advance

No problem. Email me whenever.

The United States is a wonderful, wonderful place. I've lived in several US states and have worked on temporary visa in foreign nations, so I have something to compare it to.

Yes, healthcare and homes/apartments can be expensive, but there are alternatives for healthcare[0], and you can get cheaper housing if you're outside of big cities.

The flip side is everything else is cheap. Groceries are cheap. Clothes are cheap. Restaurants are cheap. (For lunch today, I had a hearty lunch for $5. And I could go cheaper if I had to.) Home goods are cheap. Cars are cheap.

It's a great place to live. Most of the negative stuff you hear are us wrestling with our problems, when on the whole we're actually extremely fortunate and blessed[1].

[0]: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2017/11/05/when-your-shitty-...

[1]: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/455920/2018-great-time...

With the caveat that you're calling a fast food joint a restaurant.

Personally I'm not sure I could live on US cheap "food". As far as i know it's so fried and full of chemicals that my liver would explode.

Isn't the US the country where you can call 'chocolate' a product that doesn't contain any cocoa?

I've seen both sides.

If you're healthy and you make a lot of money, America is a great place.

It's a very unforgiving place to be poor and sick, however. When you fall, you go all the way down to the bottom. If you can't make money, you're worthless.

Born and raised in the US. I don't think it's a crazy place to live.

I live off of a relatively small amount, less than 30k per year. I pay my insurance bills and I pay my taxes. Average rent for a studio where I am is ~$900/mo, and I live in a major east coast city.

I get my teeth cleaned every 6 months at the dentist. I have yearly physicals. I was in a car accident and had to go to the ER. That was covered by my auto insurance as well as health insurance.

I never have thought about bankruptcy as an outcome of breaking my leg... how on earth would that happen with insurance?

Moved to the US from Canada. Have lived in ~5 different states over a decade.

The US is a wonderful place to live. Yes, the US does have unique problems that other countries don't, but overall, I would still choose to live her over most other countries (having visited a ton of them).

If you get a job that offers insurance, you'll be fine. Unless you lose the job and don't have the money saved to pay for COBRA or a marketplace plan... So have emergency savings.