sherbert

Um. I know several non US people working in teaching positions in schools in the Bay Area, mostly in private schools.

sherbert

For the Bay Area, the saying goes that $150k/year is minimum wage for a single person to be able to afford rent and be able to have any standard of life (eating out occasionally, some social activities etc). Not only is the cost of rent outrageous, the cost of food in the supermarket will shock you to the core. State and federal taxes will take out a huge chunk, as will your monthly health insurance (for two) costs.

Pulaski

Sorry, but anyone in fair-to-good health who pays for a traditional health insurance policy in 2020 is an idiot. High deductible insurance is the only logical choice for most people.

retzie

Except it is not always an option!! You know as well as we all do that your employer's choices dictate what your choices will be.

Pulaski

As HD insurance is supported by the IRS through the tax code, I suspect that only a very small minority of employers don't offer an HD option, and that most of those employers that don't are the sort of employer that heavily subsidizes traditional policies so that they are very cheap - such as I believe the tech giants of Silicon Valley do.

Anyway my comment was more directed to new arrivals who may mistakenly think that trying to replicate the NHS is the best choice - paying for as much coverage as possible so as to minimize the out-of-pocket costs when yo use medical services, when that is unlikely to be true,

civilservant

My (healthcare based) employer offers an HD plan that is a while $2 a paycheck less than the traditional.

You better believe I have the traditional.

tom169

Unless you are otherwise healthy and would like tax and other benefits of a HSA

retzie

My employer is in the second category, but definitely isn't Silicon Valley territory. We were talking about this at work the other day. A colleague's husband is on our insurance because his company (top NYC law firm) has much worse insurance; apparently, the partners have a separate group policy and the rank and file can get stuffed. Nonetheless, my current options absolutely pale in comparison to what I used to get on university policies.

My point is that there is a huge amount of variation with many, many factors beyond quality and size of the company. I agree that new arrivals should be alerted that replicating the familiar NHS-feel is almost never optimal. However, I don't think there is one blanket piece of advice we can give, except perhaps "sit down and really READ what is on offer and if it looks like there are holes, there are!"

scrubbedexpat099

Not all Employers will add spouses if they have the ability to be covered under their own employment.

Pulaski

This is good advice, but my point is that "reading" is not sufficient, because there is a natural temptation, coming with the mentality of "free" NHS coverage, that "more coverage" is necessarily better. I often liken it to expecting car insurance to pay for tyres and oil changes - with HD health insurance you're covered for the big bills, but pick up the routine costs yourself.

I see similar things in the French forum, where "top up" insurance is recommended as the government coverage is IIRC only for 70% of the bill to be covered, and I wonder if, if you have the savings to pay out of pocket, that not buying the top up insurance and self-insuring by keep the premium yourself might be a better financial decision.