Ask HN: How many of you are truly considering moving to Canada?
With so many people saying that they'll move to Canada if Trump wins, I'm wondering who is really considering (or already decided) doing it; and the conclusions they have come to. What are your reasons? What are the trade-offs? Why are they worth it / not worth it?
27 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 931 ms ] threadIf he fires all the generals, and only keeps the yes men we're probably all screwed again.
Pulls out of Paris Climate agreement and rolls back climate change that's more of a world problem too.
Fuck Thiel, fuck Y Combinator, fuck racism and sexism and fuck calling Clinton "the lesser of two evils" because people can't differentiate between a security violation [1] and a 40-year career of housing discrimination, fraud, misogyny, tax evasion, and brazen narcissism. And especially fuck the anti-intellectualism that has taken over not just corporate life and the software industry, but now political life wholesale.
[1] And as someone who's worked for the Feds, I am pissed as hell at Clinton for her email server. If the Republicans had put forward someone decent, I might have gone that way. Trump, on the other hand... just no.
Canada seems easier since they speak English and I speak okay French, but I'm not sure it would be the place I would want to stay (really only considering Vancouver strongly).
So this is just another trigger to look closer at moving.
Also, I'm told that everyone wears black in Scandinavia. Bonus.
So if you dislike the outcomes of the election, move to a very blue state.
Bullshit. First of all, high house prices are there because most of the country is dying (another causative factor of this shocking election). Second, as much as "Obamacare" failed, it was better than doing nothing-- we had a 9/11 every 24 days under the old health insurance system-- and repealing it will kill people in blue states and red ones. Finally, the threatened trade wars will put our economy in a deep recession.
It's too early to tell. Trump could turn out to be a "normal" Republican and then we're probably fine. Or, this could be a complete disaster.
Maybe if you're white and male and doing ok financially.
In the worst scenarios, it won't matter what country I'm in as long as it's still on this planet.
In the merely really-bad scenarios, people that look like me won't be the ones in trouble and I feel obliged to stay and help those that are.
Now in Toronto. Couldn't be happier: yes, you earn less and pay higher taxes, but those taxes go a long way - functioning public transit (i.e. "I can get just about anywhere inside the city core 24/7"); rapidly improving cycling infrastructure; nationalized health care; several months parental leave paid for by provincial and federal governments; fantastic grant and tax credit programs for young founders (under age 35), digital media / tech companies, and a slew of other relevant categories; and so on.
People are polite and reasonable; staff at government offices are understanding and helpful (which goes a long way when you're moving, believe me); the tech scene here has a vibrant community feel to it, and is fed by several nearby universities. If you're moving from the US right now, the current exchange rate is an added bonus.
Don't get me wrong: the beautiful scenery of the Bay Area is nearly unparalleled, and there is an optimistic / entrepreneurial attitude parts of which I admire - but SF is fast losing its monopoly on the latter to other tech hubs.
Your education, effort and day-to-day actions will affect you more than who lives in the white house
Unfortunately, it looks like that may be the direction they are going. Both the plan that the House put forward a few months ago and Trump say that pre-existing conditions should not stop people from being covered, nor should those people pay more. Both seem to want it to stay insurance based.
...and both do not seem to have any way to get people who are healthy to actually get insurance.
That does not work. It was tried, unintentionally, in the state of Washington in the '90s. In 1993, the state passed a healthcare law that required insurers to cover those with pre-existing conditions, capped premiums, made premiums similar for young and the old, and had a phase in over time of mandates for individuals and employers to purchase insurance.
Then the control of the legislature changed hands, and much of it was repealed. However, the requirement to cover pre-existing was kept because the legislature knew that repealing that would be quick political suicide.
Of course, people quickly figured out that they could cut way back on insurance until they actually needed it. For example, a woman might go without any insurance that covers pregnancy and related costs until she actually got pregnant, and then she would get that insurance.
The result? Within a few years, not a single major insurance provider offered individual health insurance in Washington. For most residents, if you wanted health insurance you needed to find an employer that provided it as a benefit.
Later they made more changes that allowed for higher rates, and while still requiring coverage of pre-existing conditions allowed insurance companies to impose a nine month wait before coverage starts. That got insurers to come back, but individual insurance was no longer very affordable.
Old: guaranteed issue, individual mandate
New: guaranteed issue conditional on continuous coverage, high risk pools for people without continuous coverage.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of other stuff not to like about proposed replacements --- the elimination of annual coverage caps, for instance, or the "buy across state lines" requirement.