California Plates

[Ex New Yorker]

Originally Posted by Miss Jean

Well I lived in CA a few years. Left in 2004 and I kept my plates... want to make a little bird house with a tin roof (which I will use the plates for... since you don't have to return them). Also I just moved to AZ in August 2019 and kept my plates the first 6 months... because you don't have to register in AZ until you've been here that long.

Not me, I couldn't wait to get rid of my New York plates and just about anything that had to do with New York. Good riddance, I live in Arizona now.

[chairmanoftheboard]

Originally Posted by Angelino19

Several of my California family members have moved to Arizona in past two years. All but one have kept their Calif license plates and drivers license. A few still come back to Calif. for doctors appointments at Kaiser Permanente, the largest and highest rated private health care provider in Southern Calif.

Is something wrong with healthcare in AZ? Got to be pretty desperate to want to keep Kaiser. Ask anyone that has had it about their horror stories.

[PhoenixSomeday]

Originally Posted by chairmanoftheboard

Is something wrong with healthcare in AZ? Got to be pretty desperate to want to keep Kaiser. Ask anyone that has had it about their horror stories.

Because of how pervasive it is in parts of CA and how convenient it is. EVERYTHING in one building. Do your normal check-up. Go downstairs to the lab to draw blood. Go across the hall to pick up prescription. Go down the hall and around the corner for pediatrician visit. One-stop shop.

I grew up knowing only Kaiser, so it was a shock to move out here and find no equivalent. You have to drive all over the damn place to do the same thing. "What pharmacy do you want to use?" FFS. Go to your checkup here. Drive 15 miles to the neurologist. Drive 12 more over to the pediatrician. Spend too much time googling around to find a convenient place to do the bloodwork ordered by the doctor. Dang.

Every place is going to have horror stories, although I never had one with Kaiser. Just typical long wait times that I've had at every single doctor's office I've ever been to.

[john3232]

Originally Posted by PhoenixSomeday

Because of how pervasive it is in parts of CA and how convenient it is. EVERYTHING in one building. Do your normal check-up. Go downstairs to the lab to draw blood. Go across the hall to pick up prescription. Go down the hall and around the corner for pediatrician visit. One-stop shop.

I grew up knowing only Kaiser, so it was a shock to move out here and find no equivalent. You have to drive all over the damn place to do the same thing. "What pharmacy do you want to use?" FFS. Go to your checkup here. Drive 15 miles to the neurologist. Drive 12 more over to the pediatrician. Spend too much time googling around to find a convenient place to do the bloodwork ordered by the doctor. Dang.

Every place is going to have horror stories, although I never had one with Kaiser. Just typical long wait times that I've had at every single doctor's office I've ever been to.

I grew up in a family which used Kaiser (San Francisco) and it was very convenient. When my mother moved to San Diego there was no Kaiser and medical treatment not as simple.

I'll have Medicare in a couple of years and will go with say Blue Shield as a supplement. I want to be sure Banner and other major hospitals in the Phx metro will accept my insurance.

[volosong]

Originally Posted by PhoenixSomeday

Except:

That just about covers everyone except snowbirds (or retirees I guess, who don't work and aren't registered to vote), in terms of people who have realistically moved to AZ and become residents.

Don't fool yourself. Retirees are registered to vote, and do so in a larger percentage than the general population.

Originally Posted by chairmanoftheboard

Got to be pretty desperate to want to keep Kaiser. Ask anyone that has had it about their horror stories.

Had Kaiser for 34 years while I was in the working world. Nary a complaint. Loved my primary care physician. Wish I still had Kaiser, but alas, I retired and moved to a different state, (without Kaiser).

[PhoenixSomeday]

Originally Posted by volosong

Don't fool yourself. Retirees are registered to vote, and do so in a larger percentage than the general population.

That's great then, because legally speaking in that case they have to get a license and register their car, which was the point.

[chairmanoftheboard]

Thanks for not answering my question. Kaiser is a bad joke, but what about Healthcare in AZ?

[PhoenixSomeday]

Originally Posted by chairmanoftheboard

Thanks for not answering my question. Kaiser is a bad joke, but what about Healthcare in AZ?

Well in my case it has been comparable, except for my own PCP. The pediatricians we've had, dentists, eye doctors, blood testing labs, etc. have all been similar here vs Kaiser in CA. We've been happy, aside from the one PCP visit I had for myself. It was a general checkup, but he had some little old lady assistant in the room with him, and she had a laptop so he could have her google things I asked him. That was a fat nope on going back there. He seemed more than old enough to have enough experience to know these things. I mean damn, our pediatrician is a walking medical encyclopedia that seems to know absolutely everything.

The part that sucks is having to drive around all over the damn place because everyone has to have their own little office, instead of being centralized in one location like Kaiser. Aside from that, the experience has been the same.