to wonder if British people who go on holiday in the States deliberately seek out the stupidest...

[AtheneNoctua]

people they can find so they can come back and tell everyone how stupid all Americans are.

Athene, medicare for kids (I can't remember what it is called) is very good in Illinois, thanks to Obama. I know several people who have opted to use that instead of other insurance because the coverage is better. I know the hospital you mentioned very well.

I always tip well. Especially when DS is with me. Wait staff are almost always wonderful with children.

Thanks to Obama?

Athena,

Obama was an Illinois senator for ages before he became president. That is why she is thanking him for the fact that medicare is so good for kids in Illinois.

Yes, one thing Obama did was make provisions for every child in Illinois to have access to good healthcare. That is one thing I thing where he did a good job, I think.

We spent six months in New York City and it was in general a pleasant experience. Not that dissimilar to London though (big cities have a certain similarity). The people on the whole were interesting and intelligent, but in our area (Queens) anyway mostly second generation, so well aware of the rest of the world. TV on the other hand was totally local - the rest of the world hardly existed (and I don't mean the UK, I mean Asia, Africa etc, just not mentioned). Some of it is just the geographical distance, but on the whole I think the US is still quite isolationist in culture.

As for the quality of living, well I think that really is another matter. Yes people are much more friendly (even in NYC), but then I've thought that about pretty much anywhere I have ever visited in comparison to London (and I call London very much home). But the insecurity of having virtually no job protection, and healthcare being such a worry is just not something you can understand until you have lived it. It really was a significant worry to many of our friends - putting off operations when they were in huge pain, paying for treatment years and years after they had received it, hugely expensive medicine even when insured, battling over every bill, being able to be fired pretty much on the spot with no reason etc.

dh has a long standing ear problem that flares up every now and then, and went (whilst covered by work insurance, at $600 a month) to see an ENT specialist (no primary care here). Result, $80 in immediate prescription costs (big ? from me as to whether the non-generic prescription was even necessary) followed by a $1500 bill when the insurance company decided that it was a pre-existing condition. In the meantime dh lost his job (pack you desk today and go). Not an unusual combination at these times.

I would not live in the US again (we are in Canada now, same nice people, public healthcare provided).

America varies a lot. I've been in Southern California for 7 months and love it. The weather's gorgeous and everything looks bright and shiny. The houses are decently sized with big fridges and ovens and fun things like automatic garage doors.

The people are generally pretty intelligent and cosmopolitan - you hear plenty of languages and accents in one day and no-one bats an eyelid at mine.

That said, I've driven across the US several times and I wouldn't live in the south for anything (Arkansas, Tennessee etc.) - too much guns'n'jesus.

A note about healthcare - it's fine if you get insurance. Costs of living are generally lower and salaries are higher, so imo, this can be factored in. I just had specialist treatment at a hospital here and was really impressed by the speed and quality of service.

Not so impressed with the birthcare - very, very medicalised. I realised I had no chance of successfully VBACing in the local (swanky) hospitals and a C Section would be astronomical - over $30k because we moved here without insurance and couldn't get it while I was pregnant (oops). Anyway... I ended up with a home birth and it was a fabulous experience with an independent midwife and two doulas/midwife trainees who were all caring and very professional.

In some states, this would be very difficult to achieve, but here, it's fine. The states really are like different countries in a way.

What's nice about California is that although bottlefeeding and C Sections are pretty much the 'norm', people are pretty tolerant and I breastfeed everywhere without comment or looks. I find there's a lot of choice here and a lot of tolerance, but you do have to take personal responsibility and look out for yourself - while I bitched about the nanny culture of the UK, you sudden;y find yourself wondering about health and safety and things like that here. Employment is all 'at will' - you can be fired for any reason, no tribunal, no comeback. You're pretty much left to it. That's the only thing that really bothers me here.

Carmen - my fairly basic non-medicated vaginal delivery cost $30k . Thank goodness I had insurance. I dread to think how much a c-section would have cost.

It's only fine with insurance if they don't exclude you for some reason, which like all insurers they will try and do if they possibly can. As for cost of living, it depends where you live. In New York the costs of living were higher than London, and the tax was too. Adding health insurance on top of that meant that we spent more money than dh earned, which was a real problem as we had to wait months before I could work, and then dh's company closed his US branch, so my work permit became redundant as did the family's visa. Here in Canada we live on one lower salary, but have much less to spend it on, and are starting to save back up some of what we sent. I don't think that we realize in the UK quite how much differences there are across the States. We drove from the East to West coast and the variation as we travelled across was amazing.

Ouch, Superbunny!

That's true Nooka. And I admit that while dh has been between jobs, I have had to pay certain portions of my medical bills that the insurance wouldn't cover which were quite striking. But he now has a job that pays double what he could get in Yorkshire at the same level and covers a better medical insurance policy so suddenly that seems much more do-able.

Living costs are tricky. We can't afford to buy a house here - the situation is that we can rent a gorgeous house, but could never afford to buy it. I'd love to buy and get that stability, but the luxury of renting a nice house is so tempting. Food, clothes etc. are cheaper on the whole though, as are utilities and petrol.

It's really a balancing act.

Overall, I am very, very happy here. There's surprisingly little I miss about the UK - just my friends and maybe chip shop chips. The internet makes everything else very accessible - and I'm very grateful for discovering Mumsnet