getting my common law spouse to USA

I will be working in USA with a TN VISA. My common law spouse wants to come with me. What should we do ?

She has a Canadian medical insurance.

Can I get a US medical insurance for her ? If yes, what does it covers ?

Your spouse can come with you. There was an earlier posting about this and the poster ended up getting TD status for his spouse (same as if you were married).

If they won't give you a TD, you should be able to get a B-2 visa for her for an initial 1 year period (although they may only give you a 6-month initial period). You can then renew this for her in six month increments after the initial period ends.

i.e. if you have a 3-year TN and she gets an initial 1-year admission, you will have to renew hers 4 times over the 3 years.

http://travel.state.gov/visa/laws/teleg ... _1414.html

You will likely have to purchase an independent health insurance policy for her, as US law doesn't consider common-law partners as equal as married. So if you were to get get benefits from work, it is unlikely your wife would be covered as well.

Independently purchased health insurance packages vary by company and by whatever you decide to buy. They cost A LOT of money. Like, really A LOT. And what they cover depends on what you buy.

Your spouse can come with you. There was an earlier posting about this and the poster ended up getting TD status for his spouse (same as if you were married).

If they won't give you a TD, you should be able to get a B-2 visa for her for an initial 1 year period (although they may only give you a 6-month initial period). You can then renew this for her in six month increments after the initial period ends.

i.e. if you have a 3-year TN and she gets an initial 1-year admission, you will have to renew hers 4 times over the 3 years.

...

FYI, my common-law spouse (at the time) was NOT allowed to get a TD and was NOT allowed to enter as a tourist (B-2) when I got my first TN. The agent simply said that although my contract was only for 3 months, technically, it could get extended and since my TN was valid for 1 year, he did not believe that my spouse would return to Canada after 6 months if I stayed in the US. Not only was she was not allowed to enter, she was actually 'black-listed' from entering the US and as long as my TN was valid, she could not enter the US unless we got married.

Before I got my TN, we had called to ask and we were told that she shouldn't have any problems entering as a tourist but it was at the discretion of the agent. After she was refused entry, we ended up getting married (we had already discussed it anyway) and after that, before we entered again we called to make sure we had everything and the person we spoke to was quite surprised that we weren't allowed in but he said that it's always up to the agent to decide. Whatever the agent decides is final and there's nothing you can do about it.

Co-habiting partners can stay with a person lawfully admitted in a non-immigrant category indefinitely in B-2 status, which in the case of TN-1 would mean when you renew it, the B-2 status has to be reacquired I would imagine, i.e. you tell the agent at the POE where you enter.

http://travel.state.gov/visa/laws/teleg ... _1414.html

If the agent will give the partner TD, may as well get it I suppose but there's no real benefit as they have similar restrictions.

The problem is that it's unusual and that means problems.

As for health insurance, depends on what the company offers. DIY is very expensive.

When I lived in the US I never bothered to get healthcare, there was a co-payment or something and it was utterly pointless given how limited the coverage was. I got some travel insurance which would have covered really bad things happening to me and paid for everything else out-of-pocket.

I have to say I found doing that to be highly educational, because at one point I had to go to hospital and then I received this enormous bill. And on this enormous bill, 90% of the things listed on it had nothing to do with me. An extremely red-faced doctor at the hospital apologized profusely and my bill went from thousands and thousands down to something like $1,500.

I came to the conclusion that hospitals pile expenses onto people they think have healthcare (i.e. white people) and defraud the insurance companies to cover people who don't have healthcare, because usually you never see the bill unless the insurance company questions it. On my bill there were pages and pages of little things that I assume an insurance company wouldn't have questioned.

The one thing I do remember from the bill was apparently I had a breast biopsy at a moment in time that I was actually in the ambulance!

Just noticed that the date on the 'cohabitation B-2' memo is July 2001. That could probably explain our 'problems' since we were refused before that.

If nothing else, the OP should print out that memo and specificaly request that when they get their TN and request the B2 for their spouse.