Details of mandatory health insurance for Non-Imm O-A visas to be announced next week

[Jack P]

Why should any particular industry enjoy protection against a risk of financial losses and not the others?

[tabarin]

I almost wanted to reply with ''Oh that is really good news, only 400K in patient coverage needed'' until I read 40K outpatient for the second time...
Even for me, 28Y old, that increases my monthly premium significantly, for no reason at all. I always pay outpatient in cash.

Actually, in 7 years time I have used out patient several times and it includes an X ray, but the total spendings were less than the additional costs for 2 months,
I will have to be paying for another / more expensive insurance now.

Guess I will be switching to a non-b, that is cheaper.

Edited August 18, 2019 by tabarin

[Thaifriends]

12 minutes ago, gearbox said:

I'm on an O-A retirement visa here, and the last time I looked at the visa conditions they just define me as a long term tourist here. Not resident. I don't have a right to work here, or any more rights than a tourist on a 7 days holiday.  Heaps of banks refused to open an account for me.

 

I don't say it is good or bad, it is just the way it is. However the mandatory health insurance for the O-A holders is a money grab. If we have the same rights as any tourist, then TI should be good enough.

Yes this is main point Sir. There are so many retirees who run businesses on their spouse or friends name do not pay a single dime in taxes. Yes many banks dont open account and problems for exclusive retirees who only tend to retire by living on their limited income.

 

I wish you well and hope you will cope with this regulation.

[bbbbooboo]

Hmmm.... mandatory ie you have to have it and then pay the going rate. Bit of a worry in a country that historically has tried to bleed farangs dry at every opportunity.TIT..... call me cynical

[tabarin]

1 minute ago, Thaifriends said:

Yes this is main point Sir. There are so many retirees who run businesses on their spouse or friends name do not pay a single dime in taxes. Yes many banks dont open account and problems for exclusive retirees who only tend to retire by living on their limited income.

 

I wish you well and hope you will cope with this regulation.

It does not matter what visa you are on, if you stay for 8 months per year in Thailand, you are a fiscal resident here too.
The reality is that even most Thais do not pay taxes.

[ThaiBunny]

9 minutes ago, gearbox said:

No such limitation on my TI...yet. As a general rule the terms and conditions only get worse, so sooner or later this may pop up.https://www.citibank.com.au/global_images/complimentaryinsurance/pdf/mcg7932_0319_citi_description_of_cover_final.pdf

I guess if all Australians sign up for a Citibank Signature card ...

[pookiki]

https://forum.thaivisa.com/topic/1100759-mandatory-health-insurance-for-non-immigrant-o-a-retirement-visa-holders-likely-to-take-effect-in-july/?fbclid=IwAR01DpPIz3JgJgYqOU6RmuOvp__6ochqucP0oCDX7sskQRhsAchC_12xLDc

 

Does everyone remember this article?  The stats cited by the MoPH was based on the total number of tourists arriving in Thailand every year! 

 

 

[NanLaew]

4 hours ago, Sticky Wicket said:

As if the plebs that run this place care about such minor details as that

plebs

noun

\ ˈplebz , ˈpleps

plural plebes\ ˈplē-(ˌ)bēz

, ˈplā-ˌbās

Definition of plebs

1 : the general populace

2 : the common people of ancient Rome

 

Maybe you have a new definition of pleb?

[Tuvoc]

Several post have suggested that the Thai government could run an insurance plan which would allow foreigners the same access and treatment at Thai government hospitals as Thais. That is exactly what happens here in the UK - applicants for long-stay Visas have to pay an "NHS Surcharge" which I think is about £200 per year, which then enables them to access free NHS healthcare the same as a British national can. Incredibly simple, why don't the Thai government do the same ?

[sawadee1947]

49 minutes ago, Vacuum said:

Ok, how much would such an insurance cost for ...say a 70year old person?

I pay around 16.000 baht. Your age 

[rexall]

5 hours ago, holy cow cm said:

I still find this extremely hard to believe as the hospital will never let you leave until paid in full. How do you rack up a bill and then walk away?

 

All we can do is wait and see what comes out and how it is written. Not going to speculate, but I have my feeling there is more to it than that..

I am an O visa (retirement extension) so hopefully this will not apply to me.  However, I have had crappy BOOOPA for ten years. Only inpatient. When this possible regulation first came up, I investigated adding outpatient coverage.  One of the problems with BOOOPA is that they do not describe coverage in terms of total payouts, so you can't ask "How much will B40,000 of outpatient cost?"  But the only outpatient coverage available would provide B2,500 per incident for a maximum of 30 incidents over one year.  In other words a maximum of B75,000.  Nothing less than that so far as I was able to determine.  The kicker is that adding outpatient would increase my premium by something like and additional B50,000! My outpatient will be B72,000 this year, so to get outpatient would be around B122,000 or something like that.   What a crap deal; B50,000 premium gets you a maximum of B75,000 payout unless I am completely misreading it. Ridiculous and not doable. Even more ridiculous considering that I have never had a claim in 10 years; the easiest B500,000 BOOOPA every made!

Anyone presently age 61 will not be able to obtain medical insurance anywhere in Thailand. I don't think mandatory insurance is unreasonable, but the consortium has better make it possible and reasonable to obtain insurance. Otherwise, you are effectively saying that old farts who are not grandfathered in with some form of coverage are banned from Thailand. I wouldn't mind if they just folded coverage into the Thai scheme and chare the nasty, greasy falang triple the Thai rate or something like that. 

[Mukdahanman]

4 hours ago, Vacuum said:

Yes, but many expats can't get an insurance because of their age.

Exactly- with the best will in the world, we can’t all afford to be ‘responsible’, much though we’d like to be.

[Mac98]

4 hours ago, Vacuum said:

Yes, but many expats can't get an insurance because of their age.

Right. And why would anyone plan on retiring at 65 to a place that will throw you out at 70, saying you must have insurance but no company will insure you?

[rexall]

4 hours ago, burner2014 said:

That's a big issue of the insurance world anyways. But it's not 100% true. I asked this 4 months ago at a Thai Insurance Company and this was the answer:

 

"It is because XXX only accepts new applicants up to 70 years old, but there is no age limit for renewal clients. It means that if you apply for our health insurance before 70 years old, you can still renew even if you are 90 years old."

 

So choosing a health insurance when you still 50-60 years old is important to be insured when you 90.

 

This is the first time I have heard of a company issuing new policies for people that old. When I was 60, I switched from AIA to BOOOPA because BOOOPA was the only one I knew about that would guarantee not to cancel your coverage so long as premium paid.  Their upper limit for new policies was age 60 or 61.

[rexall]

4 hours ago, Bobsuruncle said:

I don't believe for a minute that this will actually help the financially strapped hospitals. I do believe that it's designed to help the insurance companies increase their bank accounts. If it is actually true that farangs are at fault for the hospitals problems (which I highly doubt) all they would have to do is send a patient's passport number to immigration on the day of any medical procedure being done and immigration would not let anyone leave Thailand who had an outstanding medical bill where the hospital hadn't given them clearance.

After reading through some of the provided insurance company policies on what wasn't covered, I began to wonder if they would cover anything at all. The insurance companies have so many loop holes that I don't think they will be paying out on many claims. 

This leaves the farang to not only pay for a huge deductible or the whole hospital bill but on top of that he/she would have to come up with the annual policy amount of 60,000 to 100,000 baht (depending on age) just to have a policy. So bottom line is I see this as a farang having to come up with an extra 60,000 to 100,000 baht per year just to be allowed to stay in Thailand and not get anything for it except a worthless piece of paper stating that they have "insurance coverage". 

This brings us back to square one. There won't really be any money going to the hospitals from the insurance companies and the government will have to blame somebody else for their incompetence. 

 

Not "allowed" to leave Thailand???  Where can I sign up for that? 

[rexall]

4 hours ago, bheard said:

 

 

"I still find this extremely hard to believe as the hospital will never let you leave until paid in full. How do you rack up a bill and then walk away?"

An easy way to do it (as a mate of mine did recently) is to die.
His good woman had to cough up lots of dosh as he'd been in a govt hosp for more than a month getting treatment for cancer, no insurance, then she had to fund his cremation as well.

Sent from my SM-T385 using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
 

 

How much to final barbeques cost, anyway?

[wgdanson]

4 hours ago, burner2014 said:

you can still renew even if you are 90 years old.

At a GREATLY increased premium.

[Jingthing]

2 hours ago, Tofer said:

That doesn't accord with my experience.

 

In fact on my last extension I was forced to take a 2 month extension as my seasoning money arrived one day late to satisfy the 400k requirement for a marriage extension, previously a retirement extension, as they didn't want any glitches on the paperwork being sent to Bangkok.

 

My bank account showed around 100k prior to the deposit of my seasoning money, and there were no repercussions.... In all 4 of my extensions (3 x retirement) my account has shown far less than the 400k you state has to be maintained prior to the seasoning period.

I am talking about RETIREMENT extensions.

I am talking about the NEW RULES which are indeed in effect. 

I was not talking about MARRIAGE extensions.

I was not talking about HISTORICAL retirement extensions.

The currently in effect rules for retirement extensions are as I described. Immigration is INDEED forcing people not to spend their money if they hope to get future extensions. In some cases such as Jomtien where they are checking that the 800K is still there three months AFTER the extension, the understanding is that failing to show that will result in making the current extension VOID. 

[wwest5829]

4 hours ago, burner2014 said:

That's a big issue of the insurance world anyways. But it's not 100% true. I asked this 4 months ago at a Thai Insurance Company and this was the answer:

 

"It is because XXX only accepts new applicants up to 70 years old, but there is no age limit for renewal clients. It means that if you apply for our health insurance before 70 years old, you can still renew even if you are 90 years old."

 

So choosing a health insurance when you still 50-60 years old is important to be insured when you 90.

 

I suppose I might find insurance at a price that I cannot afford. I did buy medical insurance when I first came at age 64 1/2. The second year I was told the premium would be going up as I had entered a new age bracket. And of course, having had 5 by-passes in 2005 anything having to due to my heart or circulatory system was excluded from coverage as a “pre-existing condition”. I had a heart attack here in 2015 with placement of a stent and two angioplasties. I paid my 110,000 baht bill, thank you.

[tigerfeet]

4 hours ago, Vacuum said:

Yes, but many expats can't get an insurance because of their age.

And underline illnesses not covered.why is the 800000 in our bank account not taken as a deposit for any unfortunate illness? Or make it mandatory to have 400000 in you bank to cover illness?

[wgdanson]

52 minutes ago, rabas said:

 

Absurd point of view, how can a retiree retire if he/she never worked?

Anyway here are the official 'expat' numbers for Thailand.

Foreign Expats by regions 2010^[30]

Region	Population	Percentage
Total population	2,581,141	100.00
Unknown	2,147	0.08
Central Asia	2,749	0.11
Western Asia	6,634	0.26
Africa	8,166	0.32
Central and South America	10,608	0.41
Australia and Oceania	13,233	0.51
Northern America	46,279	1.79
South Asia	78,454	3.04
Stateless	117,315	4.54
Europe	200,564	7.77
East Asia	249,204	9.65
Southeast Asia	1,845,788	71.51

More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Thailand

ex·pat

ดูวิธีออกเสียง

informal noun

noun: expat; plural noun: expats

1. 1.

   a person who lives outside their native country.

   "a British expat who's been living in Amsterdam for 14 years"

It's short for EXPATRIATE

 

[ThaiBunny]

2 minutes ago, wgdanson said:

It's short for EXPATRIATE

I thought immediately of the Daleks and their "exterminate" - so perhaps the IOs are Thai Daleks who go around saying "expatriate"?

[the guest]

It should apply to all visas. 

[rexall]

3 hours ago, phetpeter said:

I find it amazing, how many expats think that going to a private hospital, for most problems is the best thing todo? The first thing they do is ask you what type of room would they like? 10k on the bill. Yes it needs a couple of stitches. and a couple of paracetamols, plus an injection of paracetamol. an overnight stay to make sure you don't come down with a fever or the stitches bust! and what would you like for dinner, please make sure a friend stays with you, but, we will charge for a nurse to come in every 4 hours to check you BP. smile and leave again. That will be 20K...cash or card?

 

Government hospital, clean, stitch. told to go buy paracetamols at 7/11 (10baht), pop in each day to change dressing, check its healing nicely. Whats that you paying SS? Free. Not paying then that will be 200 baht! 

 

For me, paying SS, 5 years ago Heart attack, Government hospital, every 3 months check up tablets, every six months Cat Scan, xray, ecg etc. Once a year Cancer tag checks. all other other checks and treatment, eyes stomach etc. FREE!

Treated with respect, and many times pushed to the front, as the only foreigner. When stayed in hospital private room 200 baht per night.

No one smiled at me when they took my blood pressure. ????

[Vacuum]

3 minutes ago, tigerfeet said:

And underline illnesses not covered.why is the 800000 in our bank account not taken as a deposit for any unfortunate illness? Or make it mandatory to have 400000 in you bank to cover illness?

I think the 800K is taken under concideration, but as the non-oa visas don't require any 800k in the bank, they want some sort of security/insurance from people who use these kind of visas.

[Vacuum]

1 minute ago, the guest said:

It should apply to all visas. 

Why? Many expats are already using the 'money in the bank' option.

[Vacuum]

3 minutes ago, vinniekintana said:

...and suddenly, you could hear a pin drop..????

You should have heard this as soon as your marriage papers where stamped at the amphur.

[Lingba]

5 hours ago, burner2014 said:

Bt40,000 outpatient coverage???
This would be the worse. This means you need to buy a much more expansive coverage plan than you might need just for this visa. I am not interested in outpatient coverage and still forced to buy it?
This will shake out a lot of foreigners living here. As if the outpatient medical services would be the ones which have outstanding bills. No doctor treats you "outpatient" if you don't show your credit card or health insurance. It's all about emergencies (in terms of "open bills")

Exactly...which makes me wonder if the insurance companies couls also be behind pushing this crap

 

[Rocket Hawks]

5 hours ago, mania said:

Most responsible tourists have travel insurance....Same as most responsible Expats

 

But both groups have enough irresponsible folks who do not. Then when injured/sick etc

want to start a go fund me page or leave a medical bill behind at hospital

 

 

In any case anyone who does not see this becoming a mandatory part of all yearly visa renewals has not been paying attention.

Thailand is not shy about making it tougher for expats to live full time in Thailand

 

Interesting. I travel a lot. Just got back from France. I’ve never thought to get travel insurance. I’ve always thought travel insurance was for suckers. Good luck getting the insurance to cover you ???? hah. 

 

Never had had an issue with not having travel insurance in Europe or Asia but that may have something to do with being a US citizen?

 

Travel insurance seems like a scam to me. Does anyone actually know of someone where having travel insurance was actually useful?

 

I would never waste my money on health insurance in Thailand as paying out of pocket for most issues is very cheap here. Anything serious like cancer and I’m flying back to the US anyways where I have health insurance. And if I get hit by a truck, I wouldn’t want to live anyways. Please put me out my misery if that happens. So health insurance doesn’t really make sense for me.

Meh..

Edited August 18, 2019 by Rocket Hawks

[Pattaya46]

11 minutes ago, Vacuum said:

Why? Many expats are already using the 'money in the bank' option.

Unsure about that . Seems to me that most people on Retirement or Marriage extension try to avoid this option, mainly since it's a 1 year seasoning. Better places to put that money.