Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing retirement in Thailand and various types of benefits associated with folks before they come to live in Thailand. The reason I thought of making this video is I read a recent comment on one of our prior videos, quoting directly: "Benjamin, can you do a video for us that will help us to decide if we should give up our Medicare part B benefits after moving to Thailand? It seems as though that would be a no-brainer if we are moving there. If something was to happen and we had to move back to the US then we would have to pay the penalties for each year we were gone or would it be one of those things that after being gone five years, just forget about coming back because we won't be able to afford the high coverage penalties we would have to pay?" Look, I can't tell anybody what to do with your own factual set of circumstances and honestly if you were in my office or something, this kind of question is sort of even beyond legal analysis. This is what is best for you.

Now, what I can say speaking from experience, watching a number of retirees who come out to Thailand, I would not burn bridges in any meaningful way. Like if you have benefits in whatever, this could be going back to the United States or UK, Europe any country where a lot of retirees tend to come from, if you have a set of benefits that it's not a particularly painful thing for you to maintain them, I always think it is a good idea to go ahead and have those options available because unfortunately, not a year goes by that I don't hear about somebody out here in Thailand that ended up in a situation where they didn't have very much coverage, they ended up through no fault of their own oftentimes, they ended up injured or sick and being able to get on a plane and go back to their home country and receive medical care under benefits that they would have otherwise received were they in that country, I have seen a number of scenarios where that was something that would have been a godsend for people. 

So for that reason, again I think the best way to look at it is why burn a bridge? If you are coming to Thailand to retire, why even do that? What I would also argue is instead of just immediately going off of it and then waiting five years and I may need it again and try to get back on, how about give Thailand maybe a trial period before making any of these major decisions because long story short, and again I am not advising one way or the other, people need to make up their own minds regarding these issues because they are substantially important, but long story short and the thing to take away from this video is again, it is probably a good idea to maintain as many options as you can for as long as you can.