Hacker News Reader

Comment by nimos | Hacker News Reader

Taxes are a pretty big difference too. Even though the California top federal + state isn't that far off of Ontario the income bands are much wider. At 300k USD(410 CAD) you'll have about an extra 21k USD take home in California. Then sales taxes are 13% in Ontario vs 7-10% in Cali(local taxes).

View on HN

For the Californian, you also need to factor in the $10-15k in health insurance costs. That cuts pretty deeply into the $21k surplus.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/184955/us-national-healt...

The company pays 100% of my premiums and I’ve had the same thing at other places.

Right. I think a lot of foreigners are completely oblivious to how little people with good jobs have to pay for insurance premiums and max out of pockets. Everyone seems to think it’s nothing but $100K bills for having a paper cut.

Some people with good jobs have that. The huge majority of Americans don’t, and average out of pocket healthcare costs are around $1600 yearly per person.

Before I moved to Canada I never had a company that covered all my deductibles and only one that covered my entire premium. That kind of benefit is extremely rare. It is truly a privilege of the rich to not have to think about the cost of health care in America.

Meanwhile in Canada I can go to any doctor in the province and know that I will never see a bill, and never be told that my insurance won’t cover the cost, and never have to argue on the phone about whether a procedure ordered by a doctor was necessary. It doesn’t matter if I am employed by Facebook, unemployed, or taking a few months of paternity leave.

Foreigners don’t think that everybody goes bankrupt for a few stitches. They think it’s a travesty that anybody is in that position.

That is very rare, you should consider yourself lucky. I work for a 100,000+ person software company and my [health + dental + HSA] is over $10k to cover my family of 4.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com