You have to have nhi here, by law. I mean without seconday insurance.
When someone is right f*cked with say full blown cancer, dimentia or other such ailments that can drag on and REALLY disrupt a person’s life. The meds, nurses, caregivers, renting a room to live with 24h support etc gets expensive very fast. I don’t even think a million USD is enough to be honest.
Unless one dies sooner than later.
What if you just take what NHI provides? It only gets expensive if you want the stuff not covered.
For sure. Sadly, many gotl through a lot of pain and suffering accepting the bare minimum of care here. Some go through not getting pain relief (myself included) because it isn’t covered and paying out of pocket is prohibitive. It is a choice, and we should be grateful we already have better than most. But it’s nice to have better quality, longer life, less pain etc as well.
Without any sarcasm, I would rather commit suicide than end up in Taiwan with say alzheimers and just have nhi level coverage
I’m really sorry to hear that. May I ask where you’re from?
I’m from the US and once you hit 65 you’re able to receive medicare. I know folks who are considered low income in the US (New York) and they actually get decent health care coverage. A relative of mine who is over 65 recently was diagnosed with cancer. She went to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. Her income was considered low enough that she’s paying nothing out of pocket. They even assigned her an aide to help her with cooking, showering and light cleaning etc for 4 hours a day. This is temporary and will probably last 6-8 weeks while she’s receiving treatment. I did accompany her the the hospital a few times and helped her with arranging the home aide and I came away impressed at the treatment she’s getting. Overall, it made me feel that you had to be either quite poor or very wealthy to get this type of excellent treatment.
When is a good age to start considering private healthcare?
Additionally, I saw a headline stating, ‘Taiwan’s air pollution is more likely to cause lung cancer than smoking a pack a day.’ I’m planning to stay in Taiwan long-term and eventually retire here. Do you think the high pollution levels could increase lung cancer rates? I’m curious about your thoughts.
I’ve been wrestling with a similar dilemma. Do you think it’s worth losing all your money to qualify for Medicare, or is it better to retire in a country like Taiwan where healthcare is more affordable?
In Taiwan, I could live modestly with National Health Insurance and private healthcare, but frequent trips back to the U.S. would be challenging, especially as I age.
Would you prefer to retire modestly in Taiwan with its affordable healthcare system, or stay in the U.S. with Medicare but potentially be financially broke?
I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this.
I do want to say I’m far from retirement, which means the systems could change in the future.
The headline you saw seems to suggest that.
We are closer to retirement yet still too young to qualify for Medicare. So far our plan is to split our time between Taiwan and the US.
If you are able to retire early you can go on Obamacare and if you can keep your income low enough you can receive credits that will effectively lower your cost of health insurance premiums, sometimes almost close to nothing.
Though I must say the marketplace health insurance we got is more like major medical since our deductibles are so high.
If I remember correctly Medicaid is more of a pain to qualify for. In addition to your income they also check your assets.
Obamacare only checks your annual income.
If you qualify for Medicaid then that’s the one to have as it covers just about “everything”.
I’ve lived in Taiwan since a teen, so my entire adult life. I was born in Canada. But that doesn’t really matter too much I guess. We certainly don’t want a pharmaceutical owned system here like ou have in the US. It would be nice not to have the opioid issues for example. That’s not the way forward.
One fun tidbit. Back in the day Taiwan went to countries like Canada to research different systems when they were forming our nhi system. Ironically, these years, Canada has also been looking at Taiwan as their health care system is nearly broken. How the mighty have fallen.
All that aside. Some of the most common illnesses in Taiwan, that are almost for sure caused directly by government policies and [lack of] enforcement (ie. Environmentally caused disease) are the ones with less coverage here. It’s not a coincidence and it is a bit insulting when our country allows pollution and food scandals to go on forever then not give proper health care to those hat are suffering to make his country as rich as it is. This is a big problem in my opinion. It’s also why private insurance is so common here. Even small towns have banking companies in them. But they are all insurance lol. I feel sad, if nothing else.
Is there a limit on assets and passive income ?
Please don’t quote me on it but from what I understand they don’t look at assets at all just all income.
Obamacare looks at income only. I believe Medicaid also looks at assets.
This may help:
Can we buy that in taiwan?
No, you can’t. For the most part the coverage is really only good for the state you live in. In very rare circumstances you may have limited emergency coverage for urgent or emergency situations while outside of the US. You’ll need to check with the provider you sign up with for the specifics.
For my case I consider this catastrophic health insurance while living in my home state.
Back to my original point up head. We don’t need that shit in Taiwan. Taiwans system is far superior to say the USA or Canada. But it’s not good enough, and we need to work on that. Less important is how shitty foreign countrys’ systems are.
The cause of cancer and the lack of health coverage here I hink is a very valid concern that needs to be mentioned again and discussed. Never mind EPA, FDA, land management, pollution etc and cancer. The government literally manages farmers to grow, and themselves sell tobacco.
For any major medical treatment, I would always get a second opinion/diagnosis in the U.S., then execute the treatment in Taiwan for much cheaper price. In fact, I would prefer living in the U.S. (for better environment and less pollution), and only come to Taiwan for the cheap medical procedures when needed.
For sure rhat is a relatively popular opinion. I don’t disagree either 
doctors here are getting shittier by the year. The better tech isn’t making up for this lack of skill quite etc