My spouse started working too unlike in the US where she was not "authorized" to work on H4. We are well ahead economically than was in the US and planning to buy a home soon and settle.
Seriously, what kind of country says that just because someone is on a work visa that their spouse cannot work !! Why cant ACLU take this up because DACA gives more PR for them ? Take cue from Canada, they too have temporary work visa, but the dependent spouses are free to work. The plight of H4 spouses..sigh.
The right to work is a basic human right. And they say other nations violate human rights because they block social media !! but wont allow my wife to work because she was married to me and on an H4 visa. Hypocrisy at its best.
So I left all those bullshit behind.
However, my out of pocket costs are zero. My employer pays for prescription drug coverage and dental care, but that isn't deducted from my pay check. It's over and above my salary.
In the US, I was paying nearly $600 a month from _my_ paycheck for equivalent healthcare.
No your out of pocket costs are hidden, abstracted away, and hard to quantify so you never know if you are actually getting a better value, it only seems that way because you lack the proper levels of information to make an informed opinion.
Similar to how the True cost of National Defense is abstracted away and shifted to the US by virtue of your proximity to the US... Canada has a much much smaller national defense cost (which they can use that saving for national healthcare) because they know the US would never allow an invasion/attack to the Continent of the North America,
I'm lucky - my employer was sympathetic to my situation, I had built good relationships with senior management, and what I do (I'm not an engineer) is a skill that they don't have in abundance, and I had a global role in any case.
All these factors contributed to them moving me to Canada without a major hit to my salary.
There is a difference (I get paid about USD 10K less), but that's more than made up in the lack of healthcare costs (I pay absolutely nothing for healthcare coverage in Canada), and most importantly for me, peace of mind.
Also, I couldn't realistically switch jobs in the US without tons of paperwork. As a PR, I am treated exactly like a citizen and could easily switch if I got a better offer.