Hi Kiwi! It is par for the course here in USA :) Glad to hear its better there...now let me immigrate without million dollar investments, heh!

You're welcome, there's lots of ways to immigrate - check out the on-line points calculator - sure you can get points for investment, but you can also get points for education, specialised skills, having a job ready etc etc

We do have a socialised health system (high marginal income tax rates are still roughly 10% lower than California) - so we do tend to want you to buy into that - generally we want you healthy and younger so that statistically you'll pay into it for a bunch of years before you draw on it heavily