It is probably better if you value slower life, more vacation, and working less. But it is not some obvious upgrade over the U.S. Just a different set of problems.
(I'm hungarian)
Personal anecdotes:
I had to wait 6+ months to get an actual diagnostic when I had a pretty bad depressive episode. Everybody around me shares that same experience. The eventual diagnostic (adhd with high anxiety) didn’t cost me anything. And I pay 15€ every 3 months or so for my meds.
When I got a lumbar disc herniation that required urgent medical intervention I got brought to a hospital immediately, got MRI scans, multiple days in hospital with an assigned physiotherapist, bunch of prescribed medication. Everything was done extremely way quickly. The whole thing, including the ambulance, drugs they injected to be able to move me, scans, hospital bed, crutches, and medication cost me around 40€. And something like 30€ for the month of physiotherapy that followed.
I have a high incomes and am self-employed so pay a bit more than 900€ a month for the public health insurance, which is the maximum here (the fact we have a cap instead of a pure percentage of income doesn’t make any sense to me, I should be paying way more). Insurances manage everything automatically.
Agreed that German doctors are really hit or miss, though that has been the case everywhere I lived
Personally, my life improved considerably when I decided I’ve had enough of it, and that spending around 100€/h on my mental health, plus attending group therapy which you can find for as low as 20€ for a full weekend (for example IoPT), was the best quality decision of my life. I understand not all of society is in a position to spend that kind of money, but think and be honest on your own spending and valuation. I know people that easily spend that amount on drugs or booze or hobby activities that don’t really address their mental health issues. If I hear you complaining about not finding a therapist but I see you driving a 50k€ car, or spending 2k€ on “vacation”, that’s on you.
Yes, public health insurance could be better than it is, but it’s not without alternative. The private therapists I work with have zero waiting time, and anyone can get an appointment within a week or two with them. You can spend a long time complaining and waiting, or you can invest in yourself.
It can feel life threatening to go to a therapist. And I get how people are not ready to admit to others that they’re fucking scared, and ashamed. But they should at least admit to themselves that that is the real reason, not the waiting times. The people I know that actually finally found the courage to take the step suddenly discovered that for some reason they actually didn’t have to wait very long. The federal 116117 assistance line used to be pretty bad but it has improved considerably in the past decade. Same for the local mental health crisis lines (“Krisendienst”).
That's just my experience and I have health insurance provided by one the world's richest employers, I pay 4,318.86/yr in premiums for our family with a multi-thousand-dollar deductible.
Maybe if I was a very rich person in a poorer area that still happens to have a hospital, I'd have an easier time scheduling healthcare but I'd have to make that choice over moving abroad.
Point is "Europe" is way too diverse to generalize like that.
That's exactly it, right? Self-sorting among those suitably positioned to emigrate and who have tastes more aligned with European norms?
That sounds more like pragmatism than romantacism.
In the U.K. I had a problem and phoned my gp, went in 2 hours later, 10 minutes, walked out with a prescription.
In the US I had the same problem, spent 2 hours, had my blood pressure taken 4 times, and eventually had the same prescription. That’s cost me $2,000.
Now for chronic stuff perhaps it’s different. My mother told Her gp whe hd a problem with her shoulder and Gp said she didn’t need a CT scan, so she paid $300 for one privately which was booked in for a few days later. The results said there was nothing wrong. Maybe in the US it’s different and cheaper?
A lot of "I've discovered a better way of life abroad" stories seem to quietly assume continued access to US wages, US assets, US equity compensation, or US retirement savings.
I watched a video of a teacher that moved from Canada to China. He explained how much him and his family love it there, after 14 years he moved again to Singapore and loves it there just a little better than China. it is NOT all that unusual to move and have life shared across multiple countries. I think it's natural. We were literally doing that none stop during 1500's , 1400's ,1300's, just imagine the ancient silk-road.We might make it sound and feel like it is the worst thing you can do is move to another country in a form of guilt to betrayal of your residing country, but it's really not.
Stop listening to everything that you hear. Choose what you want your brain to experience. Do what YOU think will bring you joy.
I have lived in three states so far, yes lived not just visited. A relative told me numerous times " to not go, its a bad idea and far away moving to Florida, New York" guess what I should of moved sooner. wasted time and years listening to scared of change people.
That's not quite true. Just looking over my families ancestry data. There are outliers, but most died in a couple kilometer radius where they were born. Even more further in the past. At least until the 1650s when it's hard to find data. Before the 30 year war, both documentation gets rarer and poeple apparently didn't have lastnames as they did today. It wasn't neccessary. ...Because they moved so little...
Sure, silk road. But how many people moved along a bigger part of it?
I can understand the just indiehacker and mvp/yolo it, but there is real risk there and I'd question the wisdom of that.
Other products and services, like food, clothes, a home, healthcare, education, or even cars, you can get better than in USA for lower prices, so that the budget for them can be even a lower fraction of a typical local wage, than it is in USA as a fraction of a US wage.
Depending on personal needs and preferences, either USA or another country may be the better choice, but the value of a US wage has a much lower weight in a correct decision than you assume, because a wage must be compared with the expenses. Its absolute value tells very little, because the US dollar appears to be greatly overvalued in comparison with other currencies (which is a consequence of its role in international commerce).
What’s the issue with that? You obviously have lower income in the rest of the world, the US is literally the wealthiest country. If you can benefit from US income and live in places that suits you better it’s clearly a pretty good situation.
If you instead get a local wage you will still be in a good position, people leaving the US are generally with college education and high income. Maybe less wealthy but that’s ok, you don’t have to literally have the highest income in the world to be good.
at the time ( this has changed ) the Starbucks employee could own a home and put into that equity. so lower cost of living and ability to save towards equity massively overwhelmed any perceived value of a 'high salary'. Throw in the cost of living in the Bay Area and the reality was the software engineers were barely subsisting while the barista was actually building a life for themselves.
essentially. even inside the continental US.... the cost of living and cost of equity, tax structures, etc all matter a great deal. That doesn't change leaving the US. In fact it largely just gets more complicated.
but you can ABSOLUTELY make a whole lot less in a region where you will live better and make more money Long term.
They were taken into a backroom for questioning at Houston airport for hours with no explanation and ultimately let go with no apologies, nothing. The "crime" was using their European passport, methinks. They are not going back to US after that experience.
The UK has recently implemented the system
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2d9yk2kpjo
Canada
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se...
Australia is just a should
https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/entering-and-leaving-austral...
NZ requires an endorsement of not travelling on an NZ passport
https://www.immigration.govt.nz/process-to-apply/once-you-ha...
I'm tired of this trend of people using a violation of the law, especially administrative style infractions, as a justification for arbitrary horribleness.
- I'm now married to a non-American who is not white. We're not confident in the immigration process, to say the least
- Both of us are self-employed; the quote for decent (not good, I mean aggressively mediocre) insurance was very high
- Housing costs in any city we wanted to live in were very high; YMML on this obviously, but it covers a lot of cities
- Any social ill, irritation, etc that was annoying me around 2010 is unsolved with no signs of progress
- Extreme political polarization (actually a both sides thing)
- The rise of aggressive Christian nationalism (very much a one side thing)
- A horrifying pace of growth in political corruption
Everywhere has its bad points and none of these are necessarily worse than a randomly chosen second country. I think the final deciding factor is just vibes; I feel like America is declining, the culture I was born into is warping, and I don't particularly want to watch it happen from the inside, now that I'm already on the outside.
In a universal healthcare system the average wait times might be higher but every single person gets the healthcare they need.
I laughed at the couple who listed their reasons for leaving: healthcare costs, university costs, housing costs, school shootings threatening their kids, having to work so much they never saw their kids, having to own multiple cars, etc etc and then they say "But we aren't rejecting the American system" after listing all the parts of the american system they rejected.
Portuguese might not mind tourists that spend money in the country, but I know they do not like rich foreigners living there, driving up prices for housing and everything else.
People should consider migrating to other countries than Italy, Spain and Portugal:
Poland, Hungary and Romania are great places to live.
South Germany and Austria are also great and a bit easier to get by when only using English or consider Croatia if you are up for a bit more adventure.
