Thank you for highlighting the exact reason I am living 2 retirements. Firstly my active retirement - call it 55 to 75 which i am happy to spend in Thailand health permitting with the wife, and then later my second, slow down retirement 77-death, which will be spent back in my own UK wit the wife (then of 20+ years marriage), where I will not have to worry about the hospital bills.
What I cannot understand from the poster, is why going back home and getting potentially hospital care either free or more cheap, is less attractive then death ? No reason the wife cannot go.
I'd also ask are Thais equally being chivalrous in committing suicide to lessen the financial burden on the farang in the family ? I doubt it.