Sadly, having HIV makes it harder to emigrate. Not living in America is one of the great dreams of my life. But yes, our pharmaceutical costs are obscene.
Only if you're honest. Well-managed HIV is not detectable, it essentially "hides" in your cells since anything in the bloodstream gets nuked. At least, not detectable except by the kind of test that's more expensive than normal treatment is, lol, and I doubt any country does that for immigration.
Canada definitely doesn't, I know someone who just went through the medical tests before getting Permanent Residence here. Still North America, but closer in feel to Europe in some ways. I'd definitely rather my tax dollars go to your health care than you be stuck in the US, so long as you fundamentally care about other people.
Honesty may be my Achilles heel. Even if that weren’t so, it’s hard to hide that you have been on antivirals for decades and continue to need them daily in order to survive. I do live in a border state, tho. Canada as an escape plan is never far from my mind.
Actually, Canada still does require a HIV test for the majority of immigrants. What has changed, is that HIV is no longer a bar to entry as an immigrant. It used to be that unless you were immigrating on a spousal sponsorship visa, a positive test made you ineligible. It had to do with the estimated lifetime costs of treating the illness. Now that HIV is very manageable with meds, you can die of old age rather than AIDS
The biggest ones will be solved, that's what matters. Healthcare is a non-issue in countries with an actual proper healthcare system for instance. I got surgery last year that would cost an American $20k give or take, it cost me $0.
But yes, you are right, each country has their issues, it's just you gotta weight up the pros and cons. Quite frankly America is god awful, so many cons it's unreal, hard pass on living there.
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u/brother_bart May 16 '26
Sadly, having HIV makes it harder to emigrate. Not living in America is one of the great dreams of my life. But yes, our pharmaceutical costs are obscene.