I've lived in the UK, the USA, and Australia. I've had excellent employer funded/subsidised health insurance in the latter two. The moment my wife & learned we

I've lived in the UK, the USA, and Australia. I've had excellent employer funded/subsidised health insurance in the latter two. The moment my wife & learned we were having our first child it focussed our priorities in an incredibly clear and sudden way, and healthcare was a huge component of that. It was immediately clear we did not want to have a raise a family with the US healthcare system given the other alternatives we had available to us. We saw out the pregnancy in the USA and moved home to Australia shortly after. Our second child was born in Australia. The out of pocket cost difference between the two countries was negligible. My wife would subjectively say the quality of care we got in the USA was slightly higher, though there was nothing wrong with the care we got in Australia either so it's almost splitting hairs just to declare a winner. The most obvious difference is how little planning or effort needs to be made around healthcare decisions in Australia. No worrying about if we're in network or not. No worrying about if the pathology lab that's doing the testing is in network. Is some out of network surgeon going to be attending/observing on the day? What are the financial impacts if there are complications? Do we need to pre-agree a plan of what's acceptable financially? Is the bill we receive at the end accurate? Are there risks of signification on-going medication or other costs for medications if there's a complication in surgery? Just a whole swathe of anxiety and stress that doesn't exist anymore. I'm not sure I can put a price on how valuable that is for our family. I clearly priced it higher than the higher income and lower tax I'd be paying if I'd stayed in the Bay Area though.