I've never found the healthcare argument to be relevant. Software Engineers in the USA usually have generous health care plans provided by their employers.
Continuity of insurance is an issue. My wife currently requires a fairly expensive drug (thousand+ per dose), and gets 1-3 months supply at a time. With insurance, it's quite affordable. (separate rant)
Every time I switch employers, or my employers switch insurance, it begins a long process of getting the right info (the insurance always contracts out specialty drugs), then getting that info to the doctors office (Drs offices, btw, never make it easy to talk to someone), then the doctor has to send the info to the right insurance company (rare is the doctors office that follows through the first time), then the insurance company will sit on it for a while (I've heard crazy things like "it takes 48 hours before we can confirm that we got the fax, and only then can we begin to 'process' the fax, which can take 1 day to 1 week"), and probably reject it. Then I have to find out this happened (this is absurdly difficult), then the drs office can appeal. Last time the appeal actually involved my wife's doc talking to an insurance company doc on the phone! Thankfully, her doctor is unusually reachable and was willing to do this.
So, generally speaking, it takes 1-2 months before she can get the medication that prevents her from being effectively crippled. since the previous insurance gave 1-3 months at a time, she often ends up falling behind on doses when this occurs.
I've had 2 jobs in the last 5 years, but 5 insurance companies (my companies kept spinning off or getting absorbed), and each time the process was stressful, even though each health care plan was quite good, relative to most of the US. So I can see a healthcare argument as being highly relevant.
Add in those that work 1099 or other such arrangements, and it matters more.
The question is whether issues like these are likely for the individual applicant and whether they're worth dropping salary from $120K to $50K or whathaveyou.
Absolutely - there are a whole host of issues to consider. I was just putting out an anecdote to counter the assertion that techies won't particularly care about state-provided health care. The original point is likely true for a good swath of people - just not all.
To continue with the healthcare argument, "top-notch healthcare" is debatable. Autism support in France is not good at all. People always like to think of healthcare as a single entity, a single package. Either it's good or it's bad as a whole. The truth is, it's not.
Autism in France is addressed ; autists kids have special classes in public schools (with non autist kids, so they share free time, lunch etc...., this kinds of system is aka as IME). Also those kids are mixed with non-autist kids during classes (a few hours a week). All in all, the system try it's hardest to make them feel normal (IMO).
What would you expect from a society dealings with disabled (nothing bad) ?
Nothing has changed since I last looked when I was living in Quebec.
> What would you expect from a society dealings with disabled (nothing bad) ?
What do I expect, or what do I hope? I expect that people assume that because they hospital visit for a broken leg is "free" and "good", that it carries over to autistic support, and that any suggestion otherwise is absurd and alarmist. This is usually the case.
I'd hope that they take the concerns from parents seriously and not be dismissive, even if it means they have to admit there are flaws in the system.
Same with vacation time.