Health Care Overseas…Retire To Ireland
July 13, 2009
"Kathleen, I need a list of countries that offer free insurance cover to residents as I have a 57-year-old wife who has continuing medical problems and I myself am in my late 70s."
-- Dr. Peter S., United States
Nowhere can you get "free insurance cover." That is, no country provides free health insurance to its residents. Some countries provide free or very low-cost public health care to residents who qualify. This is not the same thing.
As we explain in our report "Top Health Insurance Options For The Retiree Abroad," many countries in Europe and Latin America offer socialized medical care. As a full-time legal resident, you may qualify to avail of these services. However, often, to participate in a country's socialized medicine program, you must be paying (or have paid) into that country's social security system.
Furthermore, public health care facilities and services in Latin America may not be of the standard you're looking for. We used the public health systems living in Ireland and France and were quite happy with the quality of the care. Here in Panama, given a choice, I'd opt for the private facilities.
"Are you planning anything for Ireland?"
-- Peter A., United States
Editor-in-Chief of the Overseas Retirement Letter Lynn Mulvihill, a native of Waterford, Ireland, is right now preparing a full report on retirement living on the Emerald Isle for an upcoming ORL issue.
I first recommended Ireland as one of the world's top retirement havens nearly 25 years ago. Back in the mid-1980s, Ireland was a beautiful, friendly, welcoming, safe, and unbelievably affordable place to spend your retirement years. Then the Celtic Tiger roared in, the country's property market exploded, and the cost of everything from an Irish cottage to a roast beef dinner or a pint of Guinness became so inflated that the average retiree could no longer afford a new life in the Auld Sod.
The Tiger has been silenced, the property market has imploded, and, Lynn reports, prices are being slashed, cut, and discounted countrywide.
And not only for real estate. "The cost of nearly everything has fallen significantly in the past year," Lynn explains. "It's time for retirees to take another close look at what this still beautiful, friendly, and very safe country has to offer."
If you're an Overseas Retirement Letter subscriber, you're on the list already to receive Lynn's full report, which will include a current and complete budget for Irish retirement living. If you're not an ORL subscriber yet, become one here now.
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