Fore Man

I’m no expert and don’t want to mislead you, but I have a friend in your same situation who will do exactly as I outlined. I am unsure if you must leave Thailand or not in order to re-enter and apply for the O visa, which can subsequently be extended for reasons of retirement or marriage. I’ll leave it to more experienced minds on the forum to answer how you would do this.

Yes it would seem so. But don’t forget than an O-A holder can easily enough convert his visa to type O and avoid the insurance scam, uh...official requirement.

True; good thinking. We will just have to wait and see. I’m more concerned that they may decide to add Non-O to their insurance requirement. This would substantially color my views on staying here in retirement or not. In my mind I would think they might consider that placing THB 800K or bringing in the equivalent in monthly income would satisfy their mandate that each retiree has set aside enough funds to meet any emergency situation....medical care included. But I’m not getting my hopes up yet. The really sad thing is that for most elderly expats living here long term, the authorities seem determined to make our lives as tumultuous as they can at a stage when we only want to be settled in place, at peace with ourselves and with those we love and who care to our needs.

I think the issue for many retirees will be that they will not be insurable by Thai companies for reasons of age or pre-existing conditions, or that the premiums would be so inflated by surcharges as to make it financially impossible for the average retiree to procure the required amounts of coverage. His life would be callously uprooted and he or she forced from his home and family in Thailand. I have always considered that Thailand was a nation that embedded strong family values, but that belief has been utterly dashed now. Then there is the plight of US military retirees, of which I am one, that I’ve posted about previously. Our sizeable population in Thailand is covered by the US Department of Defense Tricare system with an annual catastrophic cap in place of $3,000. Once a beneficiary exceeds that cap, all of his care for the remainder of that year is free of charge. I know of a retired Navy sailor who was stricken with stage 4 melanoma of the scalp at age 76 which had spread to his liver. He was cured totally by infusions of a new immunotherapy drug that cost US$10,000 per infusion treatment, required every three weeks for 18 months. Some $300,000 in all after adding in his other medical costs. Tricare paid every cent after the fellow met his annual cap over those two years. With almost any form of private coverage...Thai or international...he would have been bankrupted because such coverage would never be adequate. Thankfully, I am aware that our government is fully aware of the Thai insurance mandate for certain categories of Americans living here and is seeking an acceptable outcome with its governmental counterparts.

Sorry to pour cold water onto the topic, but one of my European friends just went through a very unsettling experience at Chiang Mai Immigration. He holds an original 0-A visa issued outside of ThaIland and fell under the new regulation compelling him to have health insurance. He already has a foreign policy issued by a major international insurer that clearly shows $2 million in maximum coverages, far exceeding the new Thai requirement. When he showed his policy to Immigration, the official brusquely shoved it aside and handed over a list of 14 eligible Thai insurers that must be used to meet the insurance requirement. He said that international coverage is not permitted. Actually the original announcement in Thai signed by a police general in Bangkok does mention that foreign insurance can be used if it exceeds Thai coverage, but Chiang Mai officials have decided not to ignore that order and disallow such coverage. Furthermore my friend contacted several of the listed 14 Thai companies and each one told him that he is uninsurable because of his age (late 60s). <deleted>? it is time for our respective embassies to step in to plead for fair play in how their citizens living in Thailand are being treated. This refusal by Chiang Mai immigration authorities to allow adequate international insurance coverage clearly indicates the massive Thai shakedown for what it truly is: a conspiratorial scam that the Kingdom ought to be ashamed of foisting on older expatriate retirees who clearly can take care of their own needs.