Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing what appears to be coming online within Immigration is a totally new sort of AI algorithmic sort of driven Immigration System, and the reason for this video is to get into the ways that this can have ramifications on the retiree community here in expat land here in Thailand. 

Before I jump into the actual article, very quickly, people have said to me many times, "hey we really appreciate the content you put out; we know you don't monetize your channel" - and there's a reason for that; it obviously has promotional benefits for our law firm - but people will say, "look, I don't really need a lawyer right now. Is there anything else we can do to support you?" And you know, my better half and I did set up a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok. The name is Pancake Palace, as the name implies, it is breakfast anytime; American Diner style food. It is not only breakfast, we also have hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chilli bowls, tacos now. We have got grilled cheese sandwiches, buffalo wings. If you're interested and you just want to come on by and have some good old American style food; we do have an English breakfast on the menu as well for the British out there, so if you want to stop by, the links are in the description below, thank you for taking the time to listen to that. 

That said, let's jump in here to this citation from Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com, the article is titled: The evolution toward digital sovereignty: Paradigm shifts Thai Immigration and integrated big data governance. Love that word, "governance" - that's a word that I think came out of the Club of Rome but it's the kind of World Economic Forum type terminology, and it's going to be big data governing us now. As I discussed in other videos, it appears the AI is becoming adjudicatory with regard to certain things. I did a video, made one contemporaneously with this one discussing that in the context of the 90-day report etc. I mean this is, well it's concerning, let's put it that way. That said, the reason for this is the possible ramifications specifically on retirees here in Thailand - especially foreign retirees. Quoting directly:

Medical Inflation and Compulsory Compliance 

With regional medical inflation hitting 14%, the economic burden on public infrastructure has reached a breaking point." Yeah, I have discussed this in many other videos and going back years ago, there were major changes I think in 2016 and '17 where they actually rolled out insurance as a mandatory component to the O-A Retirement Visa - understand, that's different from the O Retirement Visa - and basically they rolled that out, basically in response to the problem that had come up of unpaid medical bills that were primarily attributed to foreign nationals. Now many people at the time said we don't get this; we all pay our bills. I tend to believe that. 

That said, as I've discussed in prior videos and at the time and not to be too macabre, but I think that this is part of the issue. It's one of these constant cases these days where there is some “problem” out there and then AI is introduced as the solution even though AI really doesn't get to the problem here, the problem being the unpaid medical bills. One of the reasons for the unpaid medical bills is foreign nationals do pass away here in Thailand, and they tend to be in the retiree category because those folks tend to be older by and large, and when a foreigner dies in Thailand, it's fairly hard to collect the bills associated with the accrued hospital bills because you have got to go after the estate. Oftentimes there may not actually be much of an estate here. That person may have been living on an ongoing pension so they may have very little financial reserves built up; they've been basically just living on their pension as it comes in. Or it is a situation that involves maybe the heirs get to whatever property is in the estate before even the hospital thinks to go ahead and try to make any kind of claim. My personal opinion is that if they want to solve the issue of unpaid medical bills, probably some sort of reform in the Succession Law - what we call in the Common Law vernacular Probate Law, maybe changes to rules regarding foreigners' estates in Thailand would be better than what it looks like they're trying to do here, because I don't even see how this accomplishes the goal. Again it's this 14% inflation in terms of costs associated with medical facilities here in Thailand, which is being driven by the deficiency, the deficit if you will, from unpaid bills and again there may be some level of folks that are still with us skipping out on their bill, but I think that that's far less the case than what is actually happening is folks passing away and they leave a hospital bill behind that remains unpaid. 

That said, what's being rolled out as the solution, it's one of those solutions that I'm not sure it's going to actually solve the problem and maybe the cure is worse than the disease if you will as it's going to have fairly substantial impacts I expect on the retirement community here in Thailand, or retiree community I should say. That said, quoting further: 

"Legal Perspective - This economic reality is the catalyst for integrating insurance policy data into Immigration portals." I state that again: "integrating insurance policy data into Immigration portals". Well what about those folks that don't have to have insurance? The O Retirement Visa doesn't require insurance. It will be interesting to see. Again folks that are watching this, keep all of this stuff in mind. We may be seeing the evolution of the Retirement Visa in real time. Now here's the thing though. The O Retirement Visa also exists because there are folks that age out of insurance and they don't lose their Retirement Visa status necessarily, because they can maintain O Retirement Visa status. Quoting further: 

"The 60-65 Age Cap - As local insurers implement stricter age caps, integrated data allows the state to identify "uninsured pockets" within the expat community. For many in Pattaya, this means a mandatory shift toward international policies that meet the evolving "Long-Stay" criteria or facing Visa renewal denials. Be interesting to see. Again, the O Retirement Visa does not require insurance so how could it be denied on that basis? And as I have discussed in the past, it is my opinion, if they ever change this fundamentally, they're going to grandfather in the folks that were in that system under prior terms. Now again, that's not a foregone conclusion, but I think if they don't, we're going to see a mass exodus of retirees who have proven to be a financial benefit to the country.

So exactly how this plays out remains to be seen, but we will certainly be keeping folks updated on this channel as the situation evolves.