If you had the chance to move to the USA right now, would you?

[HiddenGiraffes]

Context is it's a major city we've lived in before and liked, and we're currently in London, and like the area we live too. Some family in both countries.

I'm just curious if, given the opportunity to get out of the UK right now, people would consider the US a superior alternative.

I agree that a lot of this thread is OTT but on abortion rights and how things work in practice, I would urge anyone thinking of a move to read up on it, not just look at anecdotes and make your own mind up.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/18/abortion-bans-deny-critical-training-next-generation-ob-gyns

No. I have lived in US and it was nice, Boston, and it was quite close to what I’m used to, but atm no desire if it was offered.

A lot of that is being happy in London though, very settled, children happy etc

I live in a very blue part of a very blue state. It's pretty well insulated from the GOP madness. The state response to covid was an example of solid rationality that wasn't evident in neighboring states. The MAGA clown who ran against the sitting governor in the recent gubernatorial election got his ass handed to him on a plate.

I lived on the east coast for a few years as a child and absolutely loved it. Used to feel bad about my own children not having the same experience. With current politics, there's no way in hell I'd raise my family there.

I currently live in the US, although I am British.

I have found the healthcare (although I have very good insurance) to be be a thousand times better than the NHS, sadly. I’d be terrified to be ill or pregnant in the UK these days.

And all I hear from my family and friends is how dire the UK is atm.

I do plan to leave before children are school age though due to obvious reasons.

My home country is my preference, although I would like a road trip across the many states

I've experienced a pregnancy and birth in both countries and my experience in the US was much better. It feels like the NHS is being deliberately broken to make people feel like paying a lot of money in a functioning system is preferable. But paying a lot of money in a functioning system really is better than a non-functioning system, if you have the money.

I've done both, living in a lovely place in the UK and a lovely place in the US.

They both have their pros and cons, but for us the deciding factor was quality of life for our family. If we were still in the UK, I am confident we would not have been able to afford to live now. Our prospects in terms of jobs and career progression were mediocre at best in both of our fields in the UK. We both stepped into jobs here making significantly more than we had been making there and DH's career in particular has jumped in leaps and bounds here. The industry he's in is just much bigger here than in the UK, so there are more options.

As mentioned before, the time off here can be pretty crap though unless you're in certain fields or at a certain level. I just left a pretty good job with a university where I had 26 days of annual leave (plus bank holidays), 22 paid sick days (including dependent sick leave) with a separate bank of 65 paid days for me or one of the family getting COVID. (I left because of leadership changes, it was, up until that point, an amazing job). But the job I had before that here in the US had 10 days of leave and that covered everything - holidays, sick time, kids doctors' appointments, the lot. So it really depends on the job.

Also, if you plan on having more children. Don't do it here. It's literally not worth it. Even with insurance it's expensive and the US has worse parental leave than pretty much everywhere.

I love visiting on holiday but could absolutely not live there.

I definitely think there's more opportunity to make money over there. We'd have a bigger house for sure. How are you supposed to weight that kind of thing over your kids going through active shooter drills, though? I find that a really horrible thought. Have they affected your kids very much?

You can go private here too though and get better care. If we’re comparing like for like, surely you should compare Uk private to US private?

Fair point. I think the Portland is only about 15k which is close to what I've known people pay out of pocket in the US.

My dd is marrying her American fiance this year and moving to the States, I like him but not happy for her to live there, and no it's not about potential dgc either.

PMSL absolutely not!! Don't fancy getting shot and then having to pay thousands for medical treatment. Also i value abortion rights and women's rights.

@Naunet you pay quite a lot less tax in the US, though if you also count medical bills people in the US are actually left with a slightly smaller % of their gross pay on average iirc. The point is we are already paying for healthcare once, though, so going private here doesn't exactly compare with going private there.

You’ll just have to have another baby to test it out! 😆

That’s true re tax, but in terms of care I think it’s a much fairer comparison.

I think medical care generally can be of a much higher standard but it is more expensive even if you have good insurance with the co pays and things. My American family think of it as normal to consider healthcare very carefully when choosing jobs/moving jobs because of the variation of insurance - my SIL has been in a job she hates for years because the healthcare benefits are so good and she just can't find anything comparable. I find that idea hard to compute.

We have started to pay for some private healthcare in the UK and I think topping up the NHS with some private care works quite well actually and I still pay a lot less than Americans I know.

I think also that the more litigious culture makes a difference to healthcare - my BIL is a doctor who has worked in both the US and the UK and says that, for example, the c section rate is a lot higher because of a worry of getting sued if things go wrong with a natural birth.

You can have a perfectly nice life in lots of bits of the US, a lot of this thread is very doom and gloom but personally I don't think the upsides are worth uprooting yourself for.

I used to think that about taxes but local property taxes in posh bits of the US can be huge

Depends on what works for you and your situation. The UK is not working for me/my partner anymore or aligned with our life objectives, though it was at one time. Life changed and now the US fits better, so we will be heading back. Horses for courses, really, the initial question is too vague for serious answers other than the typical 'you couldn't pay me enough to move!'.

In a heartbeat.

DH has colleagues in the US who say it has changed a lot in recent years. For example, they now worry about stopping after a car accident, because road rage is much more likely to involve a gun.

We've only rented over there so I'm clueless on that.

No no and no. Guns is the main reason.

My kids are 10 and 6 (so elementary school). We live in an excellent public school district and before that they went to private school. Both schools handle things like active shooter drills very sensitively. Here they call them "intruder drills" and the kids are told that they are practicing for someone entering the building who might want to hurt people (which can happen anywhere, in any country) and the focus of the drills is getting out quietly and quickly. DC1's best friend at school actually likes the fire drills less than the "intruder drills" because of the noise and chaos of them.

And to directly answer the question, the kids don't seem that bothered about the drills. When they first started them, I did ask how they felt about them (since they obvs didn't do them in the UK) but DC1 was maybe 8 at the time and said he didn't see them as any different than a fire drill. As they get older and more aware of what's going on in the world and the danger that exists, we'll see how they feel.

Also, I'm not opposed to going back to the UK. The kids and I are dual citizens and DH has a green card, so it's certainly an option, but for now this is the best choice for us.