Expat retirees in Thailand may be forced into compulsory private health insurance

Expats on retirement visas in Thailand may be forced to either leave or purchase expensive private health insurance.

Confusion and dismay is now reigning over a rumour that Western expats retiring in Thailand or married to Thai wives may soon be forced to buy overpriced private health insurance or lose their rights to stay. With the exception of Bangkok, Thailand’s other major cities and resort islands have been home to a high number of Western expat retirees, some of whom have been settled in the country for several decades. For expats, there is no free healthcare, with a choice between local hospitals serving the Thai community and private hospitals sharing the same medical professionals and charging comparatively expensive fees for their services. Increasingly, the public hospitals are reluctant to treat expats, moving them on to the private sector whether or not they are covered by insurance.

Retired expats in Thailand fall into several categories and can stay in the country via two specific visas, one for expats married to Thai nationals and the other for retirees on pensions with a certain amount in a Thai bank account or another amount received monthly via a private or state pension. American retirement pensions cover the requirements, but the UK state pension when converted to baht is perilously close to the monthly amount required. All expat visas must be renewed annually. A good number of expatriate retirees choose not to buy private health insurance for financial reasons or because they simply prefer to self-pay using their capital should hospitalisation become necessary.

Literally billions of baht are paid every year by expats of all ages financing their own treatments, despite what’s regularly written in the media about non-payers. Those who can’t pay are normally far younger, and many expats who’d be able to afford insurance are blacklisted because of their age or existing conditions. The private hospitals are notorious in the expat community for not publishing their charges on their websites, thus giving no benchmarks for those who need them. Should compulsory private health insurance be a pre-condition of what are popularly known as the ‘retirement visa’ and the ‘marriage visa’, an involuntary mass exodus of expat retirees unable or unwilling to comply may well be the result. The only alternative would seem to be the so-called ‘Elite’ five-year visa, available to expats for an up front, non-returnable payment of 500,000 baht, again unaffordable for many.