Re:Ask HN: EU devs who moved to the States for work, has it ...
by thorin on Monday November 29, 2021 @08:01AM
(#29379311)
I'd like to understand this better. If I was a software engineer for 20 years and had cover and savings etc then was between jobs for a few months for whatever reason and got into a car crash how would that work.
Would I get medicare/aid?
Are all people students / unemployed expected to be paying monthly premiums to get any kind of cover?
I have had healthcare in the US for a serious accident, but I had travel insurance (UK based) which likely saved me 100,000s of dollars. Fortunately they paid up without question. I'm not sure how that would have worked if I was just some regular student from the US travelling around, would I be bankrupted for life or hoping for crowdfunding? Sounds like if you have an accident in the US you need to be rich or popular (or maybe really poor).
The very non-privileged get moderately ok, free healthcare via Medicaid (along with numerous other programs for poorer people, including coverage for children, SS disability and so on). That covers the poorest/worst off quarter of the US population approximately.
It's the working poor and middle class that really get screwed with the US system. The well-off pay taxes to cover the free healthcare system that the US has. The working poor and middle class often can't afford the healthcare system, are more frequently at risk while unemployed, and their employers are less likely to provide good coverage as a benefit.