One way expats can avoid compulsory health insurance
As ever, confusion reigns over the news that one-year O/A visa holders may soon need compulsory medical insurance.
Most ageing and aged retired farang, in fact, have a 12-month extension of stay granted on the back of an original three-month non-immigrant visa. Not the same thing at all.
Much publicity is given to foreigners who can’t pay their hospital bills – most of them much younger than retirement age, by the way – but billions of baht are paid annually by retirees who do have their own financial resources to pay for heart bypasses and the rest. Assuming all these residents have to quit Thailand because no insurance company will touch them, the private hospital sector in Thailand will lose big time.
The devil, of course, is in the details not yet revealed. One obvious solution for the better-off 70-year-old would be the baby Elite card, which permits five years’ residence, in three-monthly chunks, in exchange for a non-refundable Bt500,000. No medical insurance necessary.
Barry Kenyon
Pattaya
