Transcript of the above video: 

Yeah, this is a topic we've been talking about for years now. If you go back in our channel, you will see we were talking about this some years back where they put a mandatory Insurance requirement on folks maintaining retiree status. The thinking at the time was based on the notion that retirees were using the medical system and effectively not paying back; they weren't paying for what they were using, and it was taxing the system. Also, there was another sort of narrative that got sort of woven into that one which was there are tourists as well who come here and they have problems and then they use the medical system and, tax the medical system - and by tax I mean they used resources of the Medical System without paying for it. So in the retiree case they came up with mandatory insurance which doesn't apply across the board; it only applies in the O-A category. Then they came up with, they've been talking for a long time about this so-called Tourist Tax. My argument is at the end of the day do we really need any of this? Where does this notion that anyone should get free health care here in Thailand come from? I have never really understood this. 

That said, I thought of making this video after reading recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Thailand's Medical Insurance rules for foreigners are a muddle. Yeah, yeah! Quoting further: "Following the failure of an injured Brit to obtain free hospital treatment in Thailand, British insurers are calling for clarity." Well, why? Is this like a colonial thing, like you have got this mentality that somehow because your people have come to Thailand, that they are allowed to avail themselves of free health insurance? Also, and I urge folks that are watching this video, go check out that article in detail, but they get into it there where it "well why are you not giving free insurance?" Well, it's because apparently this person was not adhering to the rules of the road and the safety protocols in Thailand when they had this problem. But going deeper into this - and I know this is very much an American thing, this notion that there's not socialized medicine, and I get Thailand has socialized medicine for her own citizenry, but for foreigners to come in, why is it incumbent upon Thailand to accommodate their medical needs? I don't get that. And meanwhile, in the past, it was always my understanding it was on the private individual to get their own travel insurance if that was something they were concerned about. Why is it, again this has been framed now in such a way that the onus is somehow on Thailand, and I just don't buy that. Quoting further, I'm going to redact all the names here, but let's just say: "A 28-year-old expat was injured when he fell off his motorcycle in Pattaya and broke his arm plus facial injuries. He told Pattaya Mail he was advised to go to a local hospital as the Thai Government had granted cost-free treatment to foreigners..." Well, who told you that? That would be my first thing.  I mean go find that person and put a big bag of blame on them for giving him wrong information. Quoting further: "..as long as they held a Tourist Visa. Cover exists for up to 1 million baht." And again, they're talking about this like cover exists. Again, this whole thing is real nebulous; I’ve never really seen how this works. That said, quoting again: "Cover exists for 1 million Baht, or 28,000 pounds, according to specific injuries or (at worst) death on a case-by-case, discretionary basis." Yeah, again this isn't a foregone conclusion. You get injured here, what so all the foreigners should just fly into Thailand and bang themselves on the heads so they can go and get whatever surgery they need? I mean again that's hyperbole and moreover when you get deeper into the story again, apparently his person wasn't wearing a helmet, wasn't abiding by the safety laws exactly, I don't know what exactly transpired. I'm not trying to cast aspersions on somebody that had an accident. They had a genuine accident, I really feel bad for him and yes certainly especially critical care, people need to be given that. But the notion that it needs to be granted for free here in Thailand to foreigners coming in, is pretty spurious and then meanwhile it also gets us into all this talk of it "now they'll use this as more of a pretext that we need this Tourism Tax even though when you actually look at the Tourism Tax, only 60 Baht out of 300 is even earmarked for exactly this. So, where's the other 240 Baht per person coming into the Kingdom go? Then meanwhile, they want to use the Electronic Travel Authorization system - which will create a ring defense around Thailand, more obstacles for tourism - in order to get that money and extract that money out of people before they even get here. In my opinion all of this is just bad policy. Yeah, should people who are injured in Thailand be immediately accorded Medical Care? Yes. Probably the best way to handle this though is figure out a mechanism that on the back-end, you can attach those people in some way to get it paid back. Stop worrying about how to subsidize everything, in my opinion they're worried about subsidization because they want to create a tax to create a big puddle of money that they can then use to ‘administer: which I'm sure it will never come out to be what they said it was in the first place.

But long story short and the thing to take away from this video, there could be a way to deal with this. You could come up with a mechanism whereby people that are admitted into the hospital - okay you are injured or whatever - we get your information; we get your identity and then we figure out a way in which to make sure that you're going to pay us back; figure out some way of making sure people pay it back. Again, that may not be fully feasible too, and something folks didn't like talking about when they were talking about insurance for retirees, is it was not really people that were injured and then left the hospital that were taxing the system inordinately, it was people that were dying here, and they couldn't actually get to their estate or anything to get the medical bills paid back. That was the main problem. Again there is not going to be probably any perfect solution to this but I think expectation management in the minds of people coming to Thailand that no, you are not going to be availed of just sort of blanket-free Health Care in the event that you make some mistake or end up in some, and it may not be your fault or anything - I'm not saying that - but in the event that you are injured here in the Kingdom of Thailand.