Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing retirees and medical insurance here in the Kingdom going into 2024. As you can tell I am able to stand up again; thanks a lot for all the well wishes out there by email and in the comments, it was very much appreciated. As you can tell, I am still a little bit hoarse so bear with me but I wanted, again to go ahead and keep getting the information out there. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Summary of Thai visas available: January 2024. A lot of good information in there. As usual, I urge those who are watching this video, go check out that article for more detail but that said, we are going to just quote one sentence here. Quote: "Rumours in 2023 that all expats will soon be required to have their own medical insurance appear to have retreated." Yeah, I would say that is a pretty fair statement. As of now, we have not seen any indication that medical insurance will be required for the O Retirement Visa at least in the foreseeable future. 

Now as we have discussed in other videos, you need to understand we are talking specifically about the O Retirement Visa here as opposed to the O-A Retirement Visa. As we have discussed in other videos, O-A Retirement Visas do in fact require medical insurance as part of the application process and also as part of the extension process. So again it doesn't seem like that is going to change either so presently what we are looking at going into 2024, is basically the status quo. We are basically looking at a situation wherein retirees who are looking to gain a Retirement Visa here in Thailand, if they are in O Retirement Visa status and wish to extend, no in fact they are not going to need to go ahead and have medical insurance. Meanwhile, those who are either obtaining or maintaining an O-A Retirement Visa, it looks to me like they are going to continue to be required to have medical insurance. So that appears to be the situation going into 2024. We will certainly keep you updated on this channel regarding these development as they evolve. 

That stated, one thing I would point out regarding this whole medical insurance issue, if it was to change I suspect it would be an announcement that would change things fairly quickly. Now from what we saw in the past, especially with regard to the cash substitution pertaining to the O-A medical requirements, the medical insurance requirements I should say, where once we often saw Thai Immigration would make an announcement and then boom you would just have to start dealing with it immediately, it now looks like they do kind of implement these things on kind of a time delayed basis. Now I am not going to go ahead and say that that is what will happen here but I would say that it is not unfair to presume, I would say it is not imprudent to presume that if they made a major change like that they would do it with at least some level of notice so people could get their ducks in a row or make other arrangements or whatever. That said, it's my hunch and that's all I can say it is, is a hunch, I don't believe that we are going to see medical insurance required in association with O Retirement Visas any time in the particularly near future.