Insured

I am well aware of the fact that I am a guest in this lovely country that lies just to the south of my own. A happily employed, gratefully health-insured alien of a guest.

Yeah, I'm officially an "alien". If you look up alien in the dictionary, the first entry (at least in the dotcom version) explains that alien is simply the opposite of citizen. Nevertheless, it still makes me giggle.

But yes: a guest. And as such, I try to be discreet about my feelings regarding the country in which I reside.

Oh yeah - there is no longer any confusion about my status as a non-resident-for-tax-purposes versus my incredibly incorrect ignorance regarding my status as a resident-for-immigration-purposes. I am a full-on, legitimate resident of the U.S. now: taxes, customs, immigration, health, body, mind, soul and vehicular warranty limitations. (Uh, hey GM - 36k miles is way less than 60k km, you know. For the record.) The good news: no more getting yelled at by angry customs officers who are obviously just bitter about being stuck in the basement of the Dallas-Fort Worth airport signing off on weary through-travellers' customs forms rather than getting to work the Mexico border in Laredo where the tequila confiscation is much easier to accomplish.

I so digress.

Right. Where was I? Oh yeah. I'm a guest, and I try not to diss this country too often, at least not so much in this public-forum-stylish place. But sometimes I just can't help myself.

I think it is fair of me to estimate that the majority of you are Canadians (after all, I have a site-meter... shhh... don't tell), and my main message here is for you: I want you to stop complaining about the health system in Canada. I know it has flaws, but... well...

Oh just read on.

Last week while eating my lunch in the break room of the hangar, one of guys who works there asked me about my status as a Canadian and how it affects my health insurance while I'm working in the U.S., and did I actually have insurance here?

At the risk of sounding like Dwight Schrute:

Fact. No Canadian is allowed to set foot in the U.S. on a legitimate visa without American health insurance.
Fact. For two years we kept our Ontario health cards active, because, well... it made us feel good.
Fact. We allowed our Ontario health cards to laspe because we are trying to cut our residential ties with Canada because... um. Well, we're tired of paying for health insurance in two countries, when we really only live in one.
Fact. If we moved back to Canada, our Canadian health coverage would kick in after three months. I have no idea what we would have to do in the interim. That is only slightly disturbing, but it seems that my instinctive response to not knowing something that may or may not be important is to hope and pray that it won't be important.

I tend to avoid worrying about things that may never need to be worried about. I find I can worry about those just fine if and when the time to worry ever comes. I know I know... can't add hairs to your head... yeah yeah.

Wow, I digress.

I replied to the break room question that yes, I need to have health insurance here, and that yes, I'm with Kaiser (Permanente - for those of you who have seen Sicko, and I'm afraid I haven't yet, I believe that Michael Moore discusses Kaiser as the big bad wolf of HMOs. Oh goody for us.) Kaiser is one of the four health care options that we have at my workplace. The options, as laid out, were as follows:

option 1) Cigna premium. You want good health care? Okay. Give us your firstborn.

option 2) Cigna middle-of-the-road. You want decent health care with a nice name? Okay. Give us half of your firstborn.

option 3) Cigna worst-case-scenario. You want to pay for everything until you've paid $5000? And then we'll pay the rest, even though you've already run back to your home country 'cause WOW things got bad. Okay. Give us $5, and then go away until you've reached your deductible.

option 4) Kaiser's just-under-middle-of-the-road. You want decent health care? You want to constantly see commercials on TV telling you how good your health care provider is? Okay. Give us 1/4 of your firstborn.

And so we're with Kaiser. (Option 3 would be good if we could actually afford $5000/year in the event of a tragedy, but that's too risky for us.)

The little break room question turned into a little discussion on American versus Canadian health care blah blah blah, and at the end of the conversation I realized why I fundamentally despise private health systems:

Health insurance companies are businesses. Their goal? Make a profit. Even if Canadians paid more money for their health care (hidden in their taxes, rather than overtly stripped from their paychecks every two weeks) than Americans, which, according to many sources, they don't, then at least they wouldn't be helping some stuffed-shirt CEO of some hideous very-much-for-profit company get even more filthy rich.

Right now I'm resisting an urge to change my last sentence to use the word "paycheques".

I, personally, would much rather give my money to a government institution (flawed though it may be) and have said institution dole out said money for my medical treatment than hand over the same money to a company whose main concerns are to (a) keep their shareholders happy and (b) stay in business.

Not the health and well-being of their customers?

No.

Unfortunately, I don't have a choice, living where I am, and I am forced to pay into a Kaiser health insurance plan to the tune of ~$180/mo.

Have I had issues getting something covered with them? Umm... yes, but fortunately, it doesn't involve life or death, and it doesn't involve something that has already happened, and thus needs to be paid for by someone. Something like this incredibly well-written, but oh-man-I-feel-her-pain story. I know. It's a long read, and I've already blabbered on for a good 10 minutes, but especially for you Canadians I think it's good for you to understand just how good you've got it.