Private Health Care is Stranding U.S. Expats Overseas

The story of health care reform is about legislators, lobbyists, taxpayers, and shareholders.

But it is also about Kathleen Kelly.

Born in upstate New York, Kelly is a wife and a mother, married to a Canadian and living just outside Vancouver, B.C. where she co-owns a consulting company that works with non-profit groups. It's been a nice place to raise a family, but the 39-year-old is ready to come home.

There's only one snag. She can't.

"The private health-care system has effectively marooned me here in Canada," she said.

Kelly is living in "health-care exile," a term that has emerged in expat circles in recent months to describe the unknown number of Americans who left the country at some point to pursue a relationship, care for of an aging overseas parent, or accept a job posting in a foreign land -- but who now can't return because they or their dependents are effectively uninsurable.

They live in Europe, Asia, Canada, and everywhere in between, and their stories offer a fascinating window into -- and unique perspective on -- the health-care reform debate.

Kelly threw light on health-care exile when she shared her story in a YouTube video, called "Can't Go Home."

In the segment, she explains that Canadian doctors recently diagnosed her six-year-old son, Sam, with dermatomyositis, a rare and life-threatening skin and muscle auto-immune disease. She says the family has received excellent care in Canada -- her son's disease is now in remission. "We've never seen a bill," she says.

But that wouldn't be the case if Kelly and her family returned to American soil.

"First, I phoned regular insurance companies," she told The Huffington Post. "No luck, they all considered Sam's dermatomyositis a pre-existing condition." Kelly then looked into the Children's Health Insurance Program, a federal-state insurance-funding scheme, but found her household income is above the program's $45,000 cutoff.

Online discussion forums on progressive Web sites like Daily Koz are swelling with similar accounts--of those effectively stranded abroad with multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and other conditions.

Take John Schoonover, an American who has lived in a western suburb of Paris since 1993, and who recently retired as head of computer security for a French bank. He and his French-national wife have three children, all born in that country.

As a result of a birth accident, his second son, Danny, lives with a permanent and debilitating neurological condition. "He lives in a special facility run by the Red Cross and supported by the French national health care system," Schoonover reports.

Schoonover does not currently wish to return to the United States, though, he says even if he did want to, "we are not free to do so."

A year after his birth, the couple took their son to New York to get a second opinion on his condition.

"They said 'Yes, the French physician is right on the mark,'" Schoonover recalls. "The physician said, 'Come back to the United States, you can get better care.'"

But at a price. Because Danny's condition would make the family ineligible for coverage, "The doctor said we would be quickly bankrupted were we to return to the States for his care," says Schoonover.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Michael DeGolyer is in a more precarious position

DeGolyer is a professor of government and international studies at a prestigious Hong Kong university. While living in the Chinese territory, he developed a series of chronic infections -- complications resulting from the surgical removal in the United States of his tonsils and spleen.

Like Kelly's son, the 56-year-old DeGolyer is receiving excellent care. But his luck is about to run out, because the self-governing Chinese territory requires mandatory retirement of all its residents at age 60. Four years from now, DeGolyer will be out of a job and unemployable in China. He could come home to America, but his chronic infections render him uninsurable, and he won't be eligible for Medicare until age 65.

DeGolyer says he may be able to convince his university to extend his position for a year or two. In the meantime, he faces a kind of health-care roulette.

"Effectively at the age of 60, I start with five bullets in a six-chamber gun," DeGolyer says. "Every year I can get [my job] extended, it is like pulling one of those bullets out. If I can get all five bullets out, I can come back safely."

"Or," he says, "we could get health-care reform."

Follow James Glave on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jamesglave

Comments

[werba]

Thank you for this very informative video. Our position is similar though less heart-rending. My husband is USC, I am Green Card holder, both kids dual UK/USC. We wanted to move back to US as all our family is there - we now have no one in UK since my mom died. For 2 reasons, we could not do so - all the family have mild pre-existing conditions - I have high BP, husband has had kidney stones, daughter mild asthma etc. No insurance co. would give us coverage except for State High Risk Pools, which would cost $1750 a month plus $7,500 deductible each!

Second reason is worse, I think, but widely ignored. We pay US taxes, file returns every year as is legally required - but our payment of US tax does not entitle us to medicare in the future because our income is earned in UK! We miss our family, and our once-every­-two-years reunion is not enough!

[creolechild]

If you are concerned about receiving "real" health care reform in this country, please take the time to watch a video on our current system. The video was created by Oregon physicians who are advocating for the single-payer option. The video is very informative and helped me to gain a better understanding of various aspect of health care, as we know now it.

https://www.madashelldoctorstour.com/Mad_as_Hell_Video.html

These Oregon physicians are in the process of organizing a caravan designed to inform the public about the benefits of the single-payer option. At last count they will be stopping in approximately 23 states, on their way to demonstrate in Washington. They need volunteers and our support. Please spread the word.

[maheanuu]

I left the United States where I was taking care of my mother to return home to Tahiti, where my health care costs me nothing (the same price that I pay for my medicines). Last March I was diagnosed with glaucoma, skin cancer, and colon cancer. Being retired US Military, I was qualified for VA care which I received, and which probably saved my life. My biggest problem wasn't care in the United States, but the fact that I am now a French National, and my wife and children are Tahitian, which means they are French Nationals also and they have never been or wanted to be Americans. I returned home on 4 July (Independence Day) and on the 6th of July I was seeing my primary care provider, and found out that I had been placed in the catagory of permanent life support with medicines for as long as I live. Everything I need is paid for, including trips to Tahiti and the hospital stays there.

Nope, I don't feel at all stranded, I feel very grateful that my adopted country takes total care of me and my wife in our golden years without any strings attached... Isn't Socialism wonderful?

Just this old Chief's 2 cents

[courtb]

It is not just those with pre-existing conditions. I am a healthy young adult who has worked in the UK these past few years. Since returning to the states, I am not eligible for cheaper California insurance because I haven't been a California "resident" for 6 months, despite the fact that I was covered under my parents insurance up until a few months ago-in California. I have been back a month and my application for health insurance is still being processed as they request me to jump through more and more hoops just to protect myself with the most limited version of healthcare.

[caphillprof]

The part I like is that one person isn't insurable because of complications from a supposedly covered procedure. The health care system can actual create medical problems and then refuse to treat them. How convenient!

[jhNY]

Having read a number of anecdotes about the tribulations of those caught in the gears of the current health care 'system', I am not without sympathy, but I am also confused. Who does the author think he is reaching? Readers who without these telling anecdotes would otherwise have no opinion on reform? Here, at HuffPO? Really? Or readers who require a heart-tug every so often just so as to start the juices of their righteous indignation flowing? Because otherwise, this stuff is all about preaching to the choir, and there's a lot of it going around, to the point of making a din. We all know the present system is an unworkable robbery; we all want something better. But we also know the real problem is President Obama, who wants to reform eveything by leaving the present malfeasants in charge while gratefully shoveling money at them for their cooperation. See his deal with the execrable Tauzin for details.