According to this four-month-old New York Times article (paywall warning), Malta and Cyprus were being pushed by the E.U. to end their “golden passport” programs, which allowed foreigners (some with criminal backgrounds) to pay for citizenship and through that, an E.U. passport.
As long as you are a legal resident or paying taxes in Chile you get access to their health care system and can choose between public or private and it costs 7% of your income. Seems like a fair system to me.
Their health care system is ranked 33rd in the world on par with Australia and Denmark.
Yeah, healthcare in this country is a goddam mess. I read an article somewhere written by a British man who had gained residency in the US and was confounded by the state of healthcare here. “you can go to the same doctor who practices out of two different locations, and you’re covered under one location but not the other? WTF??” (or whatever the Brit version of WTF would be-- What the bloody hell??)
I haven’t been there myself but I have heard fantastic recommendations for Italy. They hit all requirements in the OP, plus the food is fantastic, I will attest to that unless you know of some magical reason Italian cooks make much better food here in the US than they do at home.
(Bolding mine) one Friday night a couple months ago I fell into a YouTube rabbit hole of RV culture. There are lots of individuals and couples, some retired, some young, who have many different kinds of innovative RV rigs, and a whole host of tips and tricks for living comfortably out of an RV. We’ve talked about getting a trailer before, like a little Airstream Bambi or something. That idea was for camping trips, but I think my wife might be amenable to snowbirding it. Good solution for a couple like us who don’t agree on what state we want to live in. Colorado or Florida? How about both?
I read an article several months ago (probably in the Before Times, actually) about people who’d spent just enough time in a place to become infatuated with it, and when they retired, they sold the house and moved there. And many of them deeply regretted it, because they didn’t know what it would be like, day in and day out.
Anyway, that piece had the same takeaway: try before you buy. Live somewhere long enough to really know what it’ll be like before you burn your bridges. My recollection is that they thought three months would likely suffice, as long as it was during the least attractive season for that place.
Cape May, New Jersey is absolutely wonderful in everyway for a long visit but I know that I wouldn’t want to live year round there. Besides the winters still being winter, it is a little crazy in the summer.
My wife absolutely loves Disney World, so we might end up within 2 hours of Disney in the end for at least the winter. If it is near Tampa, I can line up tickets to Yankees’ spring training at least.
If you’re pretty wealthy and can afford taking an out of pocket hit, by all means, stay in the US and use its healthcare system. But the majority of people I know, even those who retire with a fairly cushiony nest egg, would have increased anxiety and blood pressure after getting a $100,000 bill for an emergency they thought they were insured for. Even if it didn’t break them, it would certainly dent whatever lifestyle and future plans they had in mind.
I’m strongly considering retiring to a country that might be less developed than the US and other G7 nations but that nevertheless allow for a comfortable life and access to reasonably good healthcare, even if it doesn’t have the latest and greatest plastic surgery and transplant operations available.
A lot of these places are are in some of the warmer climes on the planet. The only concern I’d have going forward is climate change and how that might impact the local economic and political situation, which could change suddenly and violently.
I spent a couple weeks in Chile and enjoyed it. It felt more like a country in Europe than South America. The pollution in the city was the only major downside I saw.
The crappy state of healthcare in this country is the #1 reason why I would consider retiring to a different country.
A resource that might be useful is the Joint Commission (on hospital accreditation).
They have a resource for searching out accredited hospitals internationally:
Is that all you need to know about health care in a particular country/area ? Probably not – not by a long shot. But it’s good information.
Indeed. Your health is as much a part of retirement planning as your job, your retirement accounts, your SS, insurance, and whatever property you own. Healthcare is also an expenditure - and a rather large one - that only becomes more inevitable each day you’re alive. Not only are you more likely to spend money on healthcare as you age, you’re more likely to spend an ever increasingly large sum on that healthcare as your illnesses become more potentially life-threatening and debilitating.
Morbid discussion, I know, but if people can be sober about it early, they’ll probably be in a better position to just enjoy their remaining time on the planet instead of deciding between a medical bill or rent, or knowing all those great plans to travel or spend time on the beach are forever fucked.
This thread is interesting and I like some of the places mentioned here for perhaps a visit, but not sure about living there in retirement.
I am curious about the whole discussion regarding medical care in retirement as a reason to move overseas. I thought when you hit 65 in the US you become eligible for Medicare, and therefore remove yourself from the exorbitant costs and high uncertainty of the health insurance industry, no? It’s not to say there are no costs or uncertainty with Medicare, but probably less than with commercial-grade insurance we are stuck with during our working years? As mentioned, medical “care” in the US is very good, but the whole system of insurance/financials built around accessing care is horrible here.
So, I guess my question is: if you retire after age 65 and move to another country are you really going to be better-off (both accessing care and getting good outcomes at a reasonable cost) than staying in the US and accessing Medicare?
Don’t miss the Salvador Dali Museum if you’re in the area!
Good question. My dad is on Medicare, and I’m amazed how much better his healthcare seems to be than mine, which I get partially paid through work but still pay exorbitantly for, and doesn’t seem to cover a hell of a lot.
There’s also the consideration of what will the state of Medicare be like when I’m retired-- will it even still exist by then in its current form? The healthcare situation in this country seems to only be getting worse over time.
Ten years ago we were in St Martin on vacation. My gf injured her ankle on a hike and she was concerned there might be a fracture. She wanted to see a doctor, so we visited an outpatient clinic.
The doctor could tell we were concerned about cost. He manipulated her ankle, explained why he didn’t think there was a fracture, then explained how we should care for her injury. He gave us a sample pack of Ibuprofen or similar, an Ace bandage, then took us out to the reception desk.
I had a wad of cash and several credit cards in my hands, which made him laugh. He told us he visited the US once, years ago, and was deathly afraid he’d need medical care. In place of a bill, he asked that we consider supporting one of his favorite charities on the island, which to this day we do.
I’d love to retire to St Martin/Sint Maarten.
I want to raise another point, and I’m struggling a bit with how best to present it …
Some parts of some countries are a lot more gracious with expats than other parts of other countries.
My wife and I spent time, years ago, with a group of expats living in Costa Rica. They went on and on about how the Costa Rican people were the friendliest people in the world, but that their friendliness “stopped at their front doors.”
Meaning: they were polite and cordial and civil, but you weren’t going to ever be One Of Them.
This is usually exacerbated if you don’t speak their language, and I mean better than “enough to get around.”
Which causes some expats to move into gated communities and stick to their own ‘kind.’
Which compounds the issue.
And for some people, that’s not even a consideration. But for some it is. It’s a bit of a thing to be perceived as moving to another country just because the cost of living is lower and you can live better there than you could at home. Locals aren’t always flattered by that. It can ring a bit exploitative.
So one thing I’d recommend is: if you don’t speak the language of the country you’re thinking about expatriating to, start doing your level best to become as fluent as you possibly can as quickly as you possibly can.
You may still never make it past the locals’ front doors, but it shouldn’t hurt.
Also be aware that people from the US are stereotypically unwilling and/or unable to learn foreign languages. It’s easy to be caricatured and judged because of this. It also makes it easy to exceed these rather low expectations.
Columbia is on their list which seems…interesting.
Yeah, these days, housing costs in the District are pretty high.
Yes, this is a very good point, and if we were to move to a foreign country, I would want to learn the language as fully as I could. Which I imagine would be much easier in a Spanish-speaking country than say, learning Thai in Thailand or Malay in Malaysia.
Reminds me of an anecdote from our honeymoon in Aruba…my wife was tired one night and went to bed early, so I took a Cuban cigar out to sit in a deck chair and smoke on the beach.
On the way there I stopped at a little tiki bar at the outskirts of the beach where we were staying at, to get a beer. The bartender was talking in Spanish to two attractive women who were drinking at the tiki bar (since Aruba is off the coast of Venezuela, the majority of the people who work on the island are Spanish-speaking Venezuelans). I got the impression the women were practicing their rusty high school Spanish. I asked for a beer and the bartender said “sorry, we just closed”.
So I had to walk all the way back to the main hotel, get a couple of all-inclusive beers that they serve in little tiny plastic cups, and juggle it all with my cigar while walking to the beach.
After about an hour, I had finished both little cups of beer, my cigar had gone out, and I was having trouble lighting a match due to the trade winds off the ocean. So I was going to pack it in and go to bed rather than walk all the way to the hotel and back…
…when I see at the tiki bar the two women were still drinking and talking Spanish with the bartender. I think his hospitality probably has more to do with the fact they were attractive females than the Spanish, but I rack my brain for the Spanish word for ‘beer’. I remember, go to the same bartender who told me he was closed an hour ago, and say “uno cerveza, por favor”. He smiles, nods, and pours me a beer. Then he sees me trying to find a wind-blocked area to light my cigar, and actually opens a small locked storage area on the side of the tiki hut so I could relight my ciggie out of the wind. All because of my small gesture to speak his language. Or…maybe he just realized he was busted after telling me earlier he was closed. 