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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing retiree scrutiny of Surachate "Big Joke" Hakparn's remarks recently regarding Thai Retirement Visas and I did a number of videos on this. I am not rehashing what we were talking about before. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: My take on Pattaya September 2023: Walking Street so quiet. Quoting directly: "There seems to be a lot of panic amongst Pattaya expats that compulsory medical insurance is about to hit all Retirement Visa holders rather than just those with O/A. I've been asking around but I don't get the impression anything like that is brewing. It's true that Big Joke,” (that is Surachate Big Joke Hakparn)” a Deputy National Police Chief, did say weeks ago that annual extensions of stay were too easy to obtain, but he's a very busy guy with many public statements to his credit. I rather think that the Immigration Bureau will be consumed in the near and medium term future by the Government's plan to boost the tourist cash registers by admitting millions more Chinese tourists without any prior bureaucracy and application procedures being necessary." Well look let's be clear, I have discussed this in another video specifically pertaining to TM30. While I do tend to agree, I personally think ultimately retirees will be "grandfathered in", those who are currently in the Retirement Visa system can pretty well rest assured, the terms under which they entered it will probably be maintained and I think there's a very high degree of certainty they will be maintained on an ongoing basis even if rules change. Again, it's not a foregone conclusion; it is some degree of speculation on my part but based on prior experience, as well as information from the 1990s when they did make major changes to the Retirement Visa scheme, that was what happened. They essentially grandfathered in the folks that came in under the old rules. So that is my thoughts there.

Now with regard to whether or not, retiree scrutiny, at this point he said what he said, and we know he is the former Head of Thai Immigration and he took a rather hard line when he was in charge of Thai Immigration. Even if he does become the National Police Chief or continues as a Deputy National Police Chief, he does have a lot of other things to do and I just think it is unlikely that we will see major changes to the Retirement Visa especially going into high season here in 2023.