Phuket Opinion: Recalibrating the retirement visa

[Andrew65]

You make some good points, but

 

"all of the revenues tourism generates".

 

Lots of the "go-fund-my-stay-in-intensive-care" -type tourists who have accidents and end up in hospital here obviously aren't expats/retirees, which is what we're discussing? ????

Edited May 19, 2019 by LeungKen
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[Psimbo]

1 hour ago, madmitch said:

Oh no! Not another compulsory health insurance thread!

I was just noticing ANOTHER Phuket thread with no one from PHUKET posting on it. Thanks for coming to the rescue!

[Psimbo]

34 minutes ago, Just1Voice said:

If you can answer my question, please do so, otherwise stop nitpicking on a word such as "visa". It's very petty.

 

The question has been asked and answered on the myriad of threads about this subject.

 

By the way the comment made was NOT nitpicking or petty. To use the word 'visa' for 'permit' is fundamentally incorrect.

[arithai12]

1 hour ago, madmitch said:

Oh no! Not another compulsory health insurance thread!

Well of course, there are people who make their living from clicks. And blogs. And vlogs. And frogs... ah no sorry, that's not in Thailand.

[Just1Voice]

I may have missed it, so can someone please answer a simple question: Will this insurance be required for those of us on Non-O Retirement Extensions. A simple "Yes" or "No" will suffice.

[Pattaya46]

"Yes" or "No" will NOT suffice, because nobody knows for sure right now.

We have to wait an official announcement.

Edited May 19, 2019 by LeungKen
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[arithai12]

9 minutes ago, Just1Voice said:

I may have missed it, so can someone please answer a simple question: Will this insurance be required for those of us on Non-O Retirement Extensions. A simple "Yes" or "No" will suffice.

As far as one can understand today, "No".

 

 

[Jingthing]

I may have missed it, so can someone please answer a simple question: Will this insurance be required for those of us on Non-O Retirement Extensions. A simple "Yes" or "No" will suffice.

Not right now. Maybe later. Certainty is impossible at this time. Anyone saying definitely yes or no at this time should not be given credibility.

Sent from my Lenovo A7020a48 using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[Mac98]

2 hours ago, madmitch said:

Oh no! Not another compulsory health insurance thread!

It concerns the expense of thousands of baht every month for, possibly, the rest of these readers' lives. I'm sure you can find a thread about the happy hour discounts being 10 baht off their low season best.

[malibukid]

1 hour ago, Gecko123 said:

It would be very interesting to see a breakdown of unpaid medical bills by type of visa and by age group. The reason I am questioning whether a proper analysis has been done is because I doubt hospitals collect data on a patient's visa type at the time medical services are provided.

 

What about requiring insurance and proper licensing in order for tourists to rent a motorbike. There have been many stories about tourists belatedly discovering after an accident on a motorbike that they are uninsured. Surely, many who are caught in this predicament are at high risk of skipping out on unpaid medical bills.

 

Enforcing minimum automobile liability insurance laws on Thai people would also reduce hospital liabilities for unpaid bills. Why are foreigners, who only account for approx $10 mm in unpaid bills (a pittance), being singled out? Why aren't these liabilities being weighed against all of the revenues tourism generates?

 

And what about grandfathering of immigration requirements at the time you moved here, and phasing in these requirements for only new retirees who can then decide whether they want to move here? Thailand is acting like these new insurance requirements are a minor change like a condominium board changing what time the laundry room is closed. This is potentially a huge change, and it's unfair for Thailand to pretend like they didn't know many retirees planned to live out their lives here or that insurance, especially if you are 70+, isn't an enormous expense which people have the right to be made aware of at the time they moved here. Thailand's acting like: "Hey, we decided to raise bank deposit requirement. We decided to make you carry insurance. No problem for you, farang have lots of money. We decide foreigner have to file new TM-30 report every time you come back from holiday. No problem, farang have lots of spare time, right?"

i wonder who is in charge of this policy in Thailand?  is there a committee that sits and figures out how we can extract more money from expats?  is it one person?  the banks? insurance companies?  just seems like thinly veiled animosity behind some pretty flimsy arguments.

Edited May 19, 2019 by malibukid

[baansgr]

2 hours ago, madmitch said:

Oh no! Not another compulsory health insurance thread!

I was just gonna say the same....bit of Argyll law by the mods????????????

[ThaiBunny]

10 minutes ago, baansgr said:

I was just gonna say the same....bit of Argyll law by the mods????????????

For a moment there I thought you were referring to the notorious Duchess of Argyll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Campbell,_Duchess_of_Argyll

[sfokevin]

3 hours ago, Pattaya46 said:

You do know that it's a mistake by TheNation, don't you? 

You mean this article (that has not been retracted or corrected?

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30369468

 

”Huge unpaid bills

For instance, foreigners made 3.42 million medical visits last year, and did not pay for 680,000 of them, while in 2017, foreigners made 3.3 million medical visits and did not pay for 565,000 of them.”...

 

Please provide a link to where these figures have been shown to be wrong or recanted by The Nation or a Government Ministry?...

Edited May 19, 2019 by sfokevin

[merijn]

There was a meeting last Thursday between the Phuket Immigration Colonel and the Consuls.

At this moment, Phuket immigration is still waiting for clarification from Bangkok on how or what the changes will be.

It is not clear yet if the compulsory health insurance is required for the extensions based on retirement and marriage.

Also it is not clear yet how a foreign health insurance is checked whenever required.

Until they have clear instructions from Bangkok it's all guess work from our side.

 

 

[stevenl]

3 hours ago, Just1Voice said:

I may have missed it, so can someone please answer a simple question: Will this insurance be required for those of us on Non-O Retirement Extensions. A simple "Yes" or "No" will suffice.

At the moment, NO.

 

Non-O retirement extensions don't exist btw, extensions based on retirement do exist.

[Jingthing]

1 hour ago, stevenl said:

At the moment, NO.

 

Non-O retirement extensions don't exist btw, extensions based on retirement do exist.

People that are getting continuous annual retirement extensions if they started with an O (not O-A visa) might describe their retirement extensions that way and they wouldn't be horribly wrong in the sense that people would understand what they mean. But generally people that get retirement extensions don't mention whether they had an O or an O-A when they started. But there the space on the extension application to say what type of visa and I always put O even though I got it over 10 years ago, and if I had started back then with an O-A, I would put O-A.

[marcusarelus]

4 hours ago, Jingthing said:

Not right now. Maybe later. Certainty is impossible at this time. Anyone saying definitely yes or no at this time should not be given credibility.

Sent from my Lenovo A7020a48 using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
 

 

[ThomasThBKK]

6 hours ago, the guest said:

Not sure why the government won't just make a blanket decision on all foreigners (including tourists) entering Thailand, by enforcing mandatory insurance as a condition to stay ?

 Just charge a hundred baht per airline ticket and all that stuff he complains about is paid for. No one would bat an eye about 100 baht per international ticket, but i guess their advanced thailand 4.0 IT systems would break together with such an advanced calculation.

 

Or maybe just offset it against the 2 TRILLION BAHT thailand makes every year from tourists and stop whining: https://www.kasikornbank.com/international-business/en/Thailand/IndustryBusiness/Pages/201901_Thailand_TourismOutlook19.aspx

Edited May 19, 2019 by ThomasThBKK

[rickudon]

300 million baht unpaid by foreigners. About 600,000 unpaid bills. That is about 500 baht a time .... or with about 20 million 'tourists' a year about 15 baht a person. Looks like OA visa holders will foot the entire bill!

 

Fairer ways to do this.... increase airport charges by 20 baht ...... or split it with all visa/extensions going up by say 1.000 baht ..... or make foreigners on long term visas pay into the thai public health fund the same amount as Thais do.

 

3 ways to solve the problem.

[CharlieH]

There are a number of other topics running on this issue, I dont think we need another one.

Please continue here :

 

or one of the others available.

 

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