Posted: Tuesday, April 6, 2010 12:00 am
Dear editor, I’m an American who’s spent her college years and beyond living in Sydney, Australia. I come home every year or so to the Bay Area to check in with the family, and these visits have become bittersweet as we all get older, and I start to really consider where I’ll raise my own family in the not-too-distant future.
Health care, something that never dawned on my idealistic 18-year-old self as I boarded a plane for the other side of the Pacific, has in the past few years become a major downside to returning to the states. As a resident of Australia, I’m on Medicare and choose to pay $60 a month for private insurance on top of that, which helps cover the costs of dental, chiropractic and other additional services. By contrast, my uncle pays $1,300 a month for private health insurance in California, after his employer went under during the financial crisis and he was diagnosed with kidney cancer. And he still has to argue with insurers to pay for his ultrasounds and other tests prescribed by his doctor. If it weren’t for our family all chipping in, he likely would have lost his home by now.
Reading reports of the reactions to reform in America has been surreal: in Australia if they proposed something like President Obama’s plan, it would be rejected by right and left alike as not nearly comprehensive enough!
So congratulations to California’s distinguished representatives, to our president and to our people. We deserve this, and far more.
Lilian McCombs / American Canyon
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There some bad and good side of you being in Sydney and as well an American citizen.
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