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Americans are retiring to Vietnam

latimes.com

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Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#41

Post by colechristensen »

chrisseaton wrote: post #30
colechristensen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand this. Max out-of-pocket for insurance plans now is very reasonable. If you can afford a $250k house, you can afford the max out-of-pocket cost for many many years.

Don't you also have to pay the actual insurance premium as well? Before you even get to the out-of-pocket costs? I have friends in the US who pay thousands a month for health insurance premiums.

All except the smallest employers are required by law to provide health insurance to full-time employees and may have employees contribute up to only 10% of their household income.

I did some random shopping for a typical family of 5 and found a max rate of ~$1600/mo for insurance premiums. You would only pay this if you were self-employed, part-time employed at a pretty shitty job, or unemployed and run out of the various mechanisms to keep your insurance. After that you have to spend your net worth until you qualify for the insurance benefits for the poor in your state.

In reality, with various employers I have paid between $0 and $200/month for insuring just myself. (I have paid $0, I don't remember the most expensive, but it was Who gets screwed and bankrupt are the lower-middle class who can't manage to get a full time job, especially single parents who get sick. The system is biased towards benefitting married partners with children, only one person needs that full time job to cover everyone. If you are in the middle class or above and do only a small amount of planning, you're fine. If you are below the middle, you generally have to lose everything or go bankrupt before the system will help you – people in that position are often the least equipped to figure out and head through the optimal path for themselves and end up making very bad decisions.

We don't need public healthcare, we need better support which reaches higher up the income scale and better education.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#42

Post by quaquaqua1 »

CPLX wrote: post #34
quaquaqua1 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on my medical care in the USA I can assure you Asian doctors are, at the very least , at the same level as US doctors. It sounds like an insult to my ears.

Surely there are some differences between Myanmar and Tokyo right? There’s a lot of countries in Asia.

Ironically some of the SEA countries probably have better medical services than Tokyo.

You guys are criticizing me for calling Asia a monolith but I can assure you the difference between Tokyo and Myanmar is smaller than NYU and the Midwest

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#43

Post by wavefunction »

colechristensen wrote: post #28
technofiend wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No doubt based on that recommendation Ames is a great place to live, but you're still in the American healthcare system which could financially drain you dry from one major medical incident. The article specifically mentions cheap healthcare as the other draw besides cheap cost of living.

I don't really understand this. Max out-of-pocket for insurance plans now is very reasonable. If you can afford a $250k house, you can afford the max out-of-pocket cost for many many years.

I am just about to sell my father's $320,000 house so I can pay for his nursing home care. He sadly did not have the foresight to acquire long-term disability insurance or put his assets into a trust so we'll be paying out of pocket until his money runs out and he goes on Medicaid, which will still only cover 60% of his care.

$320,000 / $8000+ a month (not including rising costs) means he has 3.25 years of care coverage paying out of pocket which I don't consider many years.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#44

Post by teamwork007 »

jjeaff wrote: post #39
teamwork007 wrote: post #37

One piece of information the article doesn't acknowledge is that property rights in Vietnam aren't the same as they are in the US. So if a foreigner "buys" an apartment in Vietnam, they can only have it for up to 50 years. In other words, it's an asset that is steadily decreasing in value, and not one that the "owner" can necessarily hand down to the next generation at a higher or the same value unless changes are ma…

Can they sell it at the end of those 50 years and buy something else? If so, I can't see why purchasing one would necessarily be steadily decreasing in value, except for the requirement of a rushed sale if you waited until the very last minute to sell.

Because you wouldn't get your money back at the end of that 50 years. If you sold it after 35 years, you would essentially be selling a 15 year contract to own the apartment, which would likely be factored into the resale price.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#45

Post by csomar »

scumbert wrote: post #38
DeepYogurt wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asia is a big place. Which area(s) are you referring to?

Strange he didn't see the irony of "insult" when referring to Asia as a monolith

Many people forget that Saudi Arabia (fifth biggest by land) is in Asia too.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#46

Post by tehlike »

bane wrote: post #29

Something many people (especially Americans) forget to consider when selecting a place to retire is the almost guaranteed need for lots and lots of high quality medical care wherever you end up. I suspect many people here on HN will retire with large enough retirement savings (and other assets) to settle down like kings in many places in the world. But the distribution of high quality care for ahem people of advancin…

I am from Turkey but living in US for 10 years now, and plan to retire in a low-cost area within the US, despite the fact that Turkey would have been much cheaper - but states is home now.

I don't think what you say is remotely true, though. Sure if you plan to live in high-cost areas in Europe, healthcare would be expensive, but taking Turkey as an example, the healthcare is very reasonably priced even in top private institutions, compared to what they would be in the US.

I do not have first hand experience for critical surgeries, but i have a recent experiences and learned what the price would be in Turkey.

Labor: US: $40K, Turkey: ~$2K. Dental implant: US: $6K, Turkey: $660

They are both pre-insurance, though.

The same should follow for critical surgeries like healthcare, cancer, etc.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#48

Post by yahwrong »

scumbert wrote: post #38
DeepYogurt wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asia is a big place. Which area(s) are you referring to?

Strange he didn't see the irony of "insult" when referring to Asia as a monolith

I think you guys are missing the joke. The users experience is with the U.S. health system. Because the stereotype and the parent comments have the implication that doctors from Asia are seen as inferior; the joke being that the U.S. sets a fucking low standard for quality of care.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#49

Post by csomar »

pcurve wrote: post #7

"They bought the four-bedroom, 3½-bathroom unit, measuring about 1,840 square feet along with a separate veranda, for about $250,000 in 2011." I'm sure it's a very nice place, but that sum is nothing to sneeze at. I wonder how much it costs now, and what is monthly expense is. Good thing is, American government has sensible reciprocal arrangement with many countries that offer national pension system that you don't n…

That's very expensive for Vietnam or relative to what you get in terms of infrastructure/law. They either got a bad deal or the market right there is crazier than the US.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#50

Post by rb808 »

colechristensen wrote: post #22
pcurve wrote: post #7

"They bought the four-bedroom, 3½-bathroom unit, measuring about 1,840 square feet along with a separate veranda, for about $250,000 in 2011." I'm sure it's a very nice place, but that sum is nothing to sneeze at. I wonder how much it costs now, and what is monthly expense is. Good thing is, American government has sensible reciprocal arrangement with many countries that offer national pension system that you don't n…

$250,000 is more or less the median price for a house that size in Ames, IA, a university town which regularly shows up on various "Best Places to Live" lists.

Its about the median across the whole of the US, not just Iowa. Other cities with lower or similar median: Miami, Atlanta, Dallas, Philadelphia, Chicago, Salt Lake City, Nashville. Loads of cities are cheaper.

https://www.kiplinger.com/tool/real-estate/T010-S003-home-pr...

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