Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are posing the question, should retirees be worried about possible changes to Thai Immigration Law? I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Pattaya MP will campaign for a 24 hours party city. The thrust of that article goes a different way but this small excerpt I thought was useful for our purposes of analysis. "Visa shops in the area, which specialize in obtaining their one year retirement extensions without "hassle" appear to be worried that, as these guys die, they are not going to be replaced. There are also concerns that if Immigration rules were seriously tightened, for example by compulsory medical insurance, Soi Buakhao would become a ghost district." As noted in that article and I urge those who are watching this video go check it out in detail, Soi Buakhao is kind of a Mecca if you will for foreign tourists especially English speakers; British American, Australian, Commonwealth countries and stuff. You will see a lot of English speakers and Europeans and things too, a lot of Scandinavians down in that region.

So the thing to take away from this video in my mind is should foreign retirees be all that concerned about what happens if they change the rules. As of right now, O retirees, folks with an O Retirement Visa do not require insurance. What would happen if they changed that rule? I have been talking about this for years. It is possible they could. It is very possible they could consolidate the O and the O-A Visa categories. Have they done it? No. I think there are a lot of reasons why they haven't, most notably for folks that sort of age out of being able to get insurance, I think Thai Immigration wants to have the option open to put them over into a category that they can continue to maintain status. Is it something I would be overly worried about? No. But is it a possibility out there? Yeah, it truly is and I have gotten kind of flamed in videos in the past in the comments where I brought this up and I get it. It is not a topic that retirees really want to think about because for them it could be a really bad situation. But long story short, yes in theory that is a possible scenario that could transpire.