No Medical Insurance = No Visa for older Expats?

[Guest scottishguy]

It appears that the Thai authorities are considering introducing more stringent requirements for those older Expats who reside on a 1yr Visa. This on the back of unpaid hospital/care/cremation biils which allegedly now total 70,000,000B annually.

 

The suggestion is that on applicaltion for a 1yr Visa renewal, a valid certificate of medical Insurance will have to be produced.

 

Whilst this may not be a particularly onerous requirement for younger expats, it's fair to guess that many older ones will be unable to produce a certoficate of Insurance as they may be of an age or or have pre-existing conditions which precludes them from getting Medical Insurance at an affordable cost.  

 

If a valid certificate this can not be produced, the financial requirement of 800,000B annual income/deposits would be increased to a level deemed likely to be sufficient to provide for their own medcial care. 

 

http://tinyurl.com/cgna6qz

[ceejay]

You can hardly blame the Thais for not wanting to foot other people's healthcare bills can you? It's not an easy problem to solve, either.

They could insist on tourists showing evidence of travel insurance as a condition of getting the 30 day visa stamp. So far as arrivals by air goes, they could put the cost of repatriating those refused entry onto the airlines - same as any other refusal of entry. Then, the airlines would do the work - because having insurance would be a requirement to check in in the first place.

As far as the 800,000 baht for expats goes I guess that anybody who can deposit that amount of cash would be counted amongst those least likely to be unable to pay a hospital bill whilst for those who use the combined income/cash at bank route that's far less certain - because it implies that they won't have all that much cash readily available, so I don't see increasing the 800,000 as having that much impact.

At age 58 BUPA would charge me £3100 per year for worldwide health insurance, so I guess it would be somewhat less for a single country. That seems to be a pretty "Rolls Royce" policy though - maybe there's a market for some enterprising insurance company to come up with a more basic policy - something like the backpacker policies you can get?

[TotallyOz]

Many policies in the USA cost over 1200 USD per month. The price for insurance in USA in insane. It would seem to me that a Thailand or outside USA policy would be best. However, be careful, I had one raved about policy a few years back and it was horrible. Now, I have Blue Cross / Blue Shield in USA and very happy with the coverage at home and in LOS.

[Guest scottishguy]

....something like the backpacker policies you can get?

 

For the purposes of this forum a 'fudgepacker' policy would seem more appropriate.

 

[Guest fountainhall]

Three things a lot of expats seem to forget -

 

1. Insurance premiums start to rise quite dramatically when you reach 60.

 

Having had my employers pay for my insurance for much of my life, it was a shock to then have to start paying for my own. As a regular traveller, I needed a worldwide policy. The one I enrolled in had great cover and a very reasonable premium. However, whereas I had been paying around US$3,500 annually in my late 50s, there was a jump to over $6,500+ at 60. Worse, when I looked at the forward premiums, there were are another two major hikes at 65 and 70 - and that's before you take into account the annual increases. I reckoned by 70 I would be paying $17,000 at the absolute minimum, and increasing the deductible hardly helped.

 

2. Insurance companies change premiums and areas with more expensive premiums at will.

 

Thanks to TravellerJim, I was able to obtain a much better policy that omitted North America. However, at the last renewal, with no warning the company upped Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore for inclusion into the North American premium. Since those are the countries I visit most regularly, I had no alternative but to pay a 30% increase on the premium. The maddening thing I then discovered was that I could have maintained cover at the lesser amount and taken out an annual travel insurance from a company based in London for US$425, thus saving around US$1,500! I'll know next time.

 

3.  The fact that you live in Thailand does not necessariiy mean you can get Thailand only cover unless you start such a policy earlier than about 60 at the latest (TravellerJim will know much more about this than me).