#1463 – The Expat Files: Health Insurance, Free Drinks, AI Scams, and Plan B

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now I wonder Hello there all you ex-pad wannabes. I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America The show that tells you just what it's like to live work play and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here. So let's get started. All right, let's talk about International health insurance plans for gringles and expats because well the subject comes up a lot Believe it or not. Most of those international health insurance plans like Cigna IMG global alliance international boopa goble

[00:49] Geo blue Explorer global IMG global. There are a couple of dozen of them Well, most of them are absolute ripoffs experts at marketing though marketing fear that is oh But they know how to suck you in if you're an expat or thinking about being an expat Yep, as soon as you start doing searches involving foreign countries, you start getting those pop-up windows about buying international health insurance Especially when you're searching or doing research on foreign countries that have lots of gringo expats like coca-sorica Mexico Dominican Republic Then the algorithm kicks in well, it won't take long probably within the next hour You'll start getting all kinds of pop-up windows, especially from the Cigna health insurance company Oh, and if you subscribe to any expat journals or newsletters

[01:37] Look out your inbox is gonna be spammed with international health insurance crap On a regular basis and they know how to scare you scare you into thinking you need international health care coverage Lest you be shit out of luck or abandoned in a third world understaffed underfunded hospital where you have to bring your own toilet paper Now I'm not talking about getting short-term international insurance coverage if you're flying down to Latin America for two weeks That's something else all together. It's always a good idea You know getting travel insurance in case you fall down and break your leg when you're walking down one of those cobblestone roads You see all over the place down here in Latin America Especially when visiting a UNESCO World Heritage Site in those quaint colonial towns like Antigua, Guatemala The fact is the emergency docks down there will tell you Every emergency room has a constant flow of gringo tourists who've sprained their ankles broke a bone or took it on the chin

[02:29] After misstepping on a cobblestone road. It's just not easy walking especially for Overweight out of shape Americans. Oh and on Friday and Saturday night It's worse because the tourists have been drinking But as you will find out if you end up at one of those emergency rooms yourselves when you're stuck in any Latin American Hospital or clinic in a tourist town towns that cater to and exist for foreigners and next pad Like for example, Cancun even Antigua, Guatemala You might be surprised to find out almost all the clinics and hospitals will accept your first world insurance And there will be at least one person in the insurance office that speaks really good English in order of course to process your claim But as you know, if you move down here to Latin America, I have your plan be down here You won't be carrying that first world super high deductible Blue Cross Blue Shield or whatever anymore

[03:18] You'll make other arrangements or maybe you won't carry any health insurance at all. You'll go naked go raw sounds distasteful I know especially to the majority of Americans who all their lives We're taught they should never let their insurance labs even one day But little by little you'll find more and more expats here in Latin America Don't carry any health insurance at all and they don't worry about it since doctor visits Hospitalizations and lab stuff are so damn cheap compared to first world pricing However, I don't recommend it because local insurance is so damn cheap If you don't take advantage of that, you're doing yourself a disservice to me It's one of the wonders of living in Latin America. Anyway, lots of gringles and expats living down here permanently Pay way too much for health care insurance, too Because they still buy into the marketing crap from international health insurance companies like Cigna

[04:06] All I can say is beware of those ads and those insurance agents trying to sell you that stuff Because the brutal truth is in most cases you do not need international health care insurance I mean look for example if you're living in Guatemala and you carry a Cigna international health insurance policy Which you're paying around $500 a month or more and let's say you pop back and forth to the United States visiting relatives and grandkids and all that for Let's say one month out of the year. That means 11 months out of the year You're in Guatemala and you don't need an international plan You don't need it because you've bought a local plan for probably under 200 bucks a month Oh, and by the way, the local plants have very low deductibles. I'm talking like 200 to 500 dollars a year You know up in the states. I know plenty of people friends and family that have got

[04:53] $5,000 a year deductible when I tell Latinos down here about those high deductibles up in the states They just don't believe it So anyway My advice is to get the local health care insurance a hundred to two hundred dollars a month And if and when you fly back to the states when you buy your tickets you buy the flight insurance They always offer when selecting your flight then you're covered health care wise for that week two weeks or month You're up in the states or visiting Europe or Canada, whatever By the way, here's how outrageous those international health insurance plans can be I'm checking out Cigna global health right now The most famous or most well-known international insurance plan for gringles and expat, you know worldwide coverage, etc Guess what? It says the average monthly cost for a single 60 year old

[05:41] 1560 a month Close to 20 grand a year. Are you kidding me? That's more than I pay for my top-notch latin american health care insurance for an entire year and get this The average annual cost for a family plan for international health care coverage on Cigna breaks down to approximately 1997 dollars a month that's 24 grand a year Are you kidding me? When you could get a fantastic tier one plan in the latin country of your choice For maybe 150 to 250 a month We're talking around three grand a year for a family plan with a 250 dollar yearly deductible So then why is it that so many gringles and expats get suckered into those international health care plans? Well, it's the marketing of course the marketing frightens them into thinking

[06:30] They'll be lost and forgotten in some shithole latin american public health care hospital Packed in a room with five other sick people blood and pus everywhere No air conditioning like a scene from a battlefront hospital in a war movie Don't fall for it Don't get sucked into buying international health care insurance from places like cigna Of course, if money's no object and you don't give her it That's another thing But I don't think you came down to latin america with your plan b to spend that kind of dough on health care insurance You're looking to save money not spend money, right? By the way when you buy a health insurance plan in the latin american country of your choice They have different levels or tiers of plans Just like insurance plans up in the states From the very basic on through the platinum and the gold plans et cetera, et cetera

[07:17] For example the company i'm with and i've been with them for at least I don't know seven eight years now Way back when when I first joined they had three plans now They've got seven and the top plan the so-called platinum plan has got worldwide coverage I'm on the plan just below that i've got latin american coverage. Isn't that funny? You can get worldwide coverage or simply latin american coverage in most of the 20 latin american countries I don't think it counts if you're in cuba or venezuela, but it's good in the other 18 latin american countries With the more basic plans. However, you'll get coverage only in the country you're living in which is okay If you're pretty much staying put in one country most of the time As for me, I did not elect to get worldwide coverage

[08:02] Just latin american coverage and of course if I take a trip outside of latin america to europe, whatever I just buy the trip insurance that they always offer when buying your airline tickets In fact europe in the first world countries won't even let you fly in Unless you can prove some kind of health care coverage while you're there But you knew that already, right? So just like any insurance plan that's got different tiers of coverage The better the plan the more you pay the more all inclusive your coverage So then you might ask why don't all gringos hook up with a local latin american Healthcare insurance plan and just elect to pay for the best coverage which in most cases would be worldwide cover Well, you could do that and the premium is not a hell of a lot more For example, if you buy a very basic latin american health care plan

[08:49] Let's say it covers pretty much 80 percent of everything but only within your latin american country Let's say for a single 55 year old it runs 125 bucks a month Well, let's say you wanted the highest tier coverage worldwide coverage. Well, it might cost you 200 a month Sure, it's almost double the basic plan though still a pittance compared to getting that kind of coverage with a us plan or Cigna international insurance. So anyway, once you get down here You've got lots of health care insurance options Or you just might go naked or raw like so many expats do for some people it fits their temperament When they realize just how inexpensive doctor and hospital visits are Now ask for me i'm a risk taker but not that much of a risk taker Hell if I was 30 or 40 years old, it might be a different story

[09:35] But when you get past 50, you know, the clock's ticking and if you get sick or have an accident You just don't bounce back as fast as you used to So personally i'd rather carry some decent coverage and it's so damn cheap down here Why not then again if you're really out of shape you're in a wheelchair or have some terrible chronic condition You probably wouldn't qualify for insurance down here or anywhere In that case latin america still is the place to be Because if you're in bad health up in the states, it could bankrupt you down here. I've just never seen that happen All right. Here's an email question from the peanut gallery This comes from loyd a new expat living in guatemala. He says he's been down in central america six months now and loving it He says johnny i've got a little story for you It always makes me laugh when you talk about different crazy ass latino names

[10:24] I'm seeing the same thing too right now He says i'm sitting in an uber with a driver named darwin As in I suppose charles darwin though. I kind of doubt 40 years ago when he was first named His parents had any idea there was a famous guy named charles darwin Because when I asked him how he got that name He said he was named after an uncle named darwin So he doesn't know there was a guy named charles darwin. Just an uncle named darwin But that's not the reason i'm writing this johnny what i've noticed in my short time down here Is that in the walmarts and costcos called price mart like you say and various big supermarket chains There's one called torre, which I think may be walmart now It's the oddest thing on certain weekends and around holiday times

[11:11] There are little stands set up in the aisles where they serve you booze wine beer All kinds of liquor even high-end whiskey sonication, of course They're only giving you one drink or a plastic cup of wine or a shot No one's hanging there getting drunk and no one's crude enough to go back for seconds But it just strikes me so strange. You don't see that up in the united states No one's getting free drinks in a costco up there. I'm assuming in the states. There's a law against Why not there's a law against everything Anyhow johnny just thought your listeners might like to know In costco and other supermarkets in latin america. They'll often let you test out the booze before you buy it Oh and another thing johnny, it's always a cute sexy latina dishing out the stuff I've never yet seen a guy in one of those little boots

[11:57] Signed loyd six months into my plan b and loving it All right. Thanks for that loyd. By the way loyd a little inside secret here Those girls are called eddy cans or promote oras promote oras Translation promoters they travel all around different stores working for the liquor companies and such Sometimes pouring liquor as you mentioned other times handing out little free packs of detergent or dog food or tomato sauce or corn flakes The little secret the little tip is Being that they're so friendly. It's their job to be friendly and hand out free stuff, right? That's one of the easiest ways for a single gringo guy to find a nice girlfriend A way to bypass all those scammers on internet cupid dating sites

[12:42] Amazingly enough a way to actually talk to a person live in person face to face eyeball to eyeball someone who's glad to talk to you too Because that's their job to be nice to people and give them free stuff and don't think those girls are just window dressing Some are of course, but a lot of them are college students and some have degrees though They found out because they're nice-looking They often make more money as a promoter from a tora Then a school teacher or working at a bank Just a little tip there. I know lots of gringo expats who found the perfect girlfriend or even wife that way By the way loyd as for me. I almost never take the free booze when they're handing it out Even if it's the top shelf stuff I'm not gonna drink a glass of wine or take a shot of whiskey at 10 in the morning

[13:30] I'm just not built for morning or daytime drinking Oh, and one more thing once I was in a costco and I noticed that one of the booths There was a little dish with coins in it turns out the booze or the wine whatever it was wasn't free You had to pay for it wasn't much maybe a quarter or 50 cents I wondered about it and I was told there are certain times and places where you can't give it away for free You have to charge something something about the government collecting a liquor tax But i'll tell you this almost every time I go into costco on a weekend again, it's called price mart down here There's always a kiosk with a pretty young latino or two giving out free drink In fact last week, I remember they're handing out cups of wine You know, there's a certain wine brand with a picture of snoop dog on the label that useless turd Such a great role model, huh? What a slimy unhygienic looking freak, huh?

[14:19] Man, the world of celebrities is just so screwed up in another era He'd have been living under a bridge and even that would have been too good for him Oh, and we were just talking about insurance plans and hospitals doctor's offices clinics and stuff Tell you what I noticed the other day. Wow. I had to go to a hospital clinic and get a chest x-ray I was brought into a room with a bunch of x-ray equipment The lady left shut the door and I was in there alone So I got up walked around looked at some of the equipment most all of it was from general electric Good stuff high-end first world like new I walked over to her little workstation the computer area You know, it's all on computer these days, right and I saw a nice ceramic jar with a ribbon on it Filled with coins and paper money. It was a tip jar

[15:05] Yep on the way out after getting an x-ray. I guess if you like the service you tip the x-ray tech Now that's something you don't see in a clinic or a doctor's office up in the states a tip jar Maybe they should so I guess the question is did I tip her? Nope, I just couldn't bring myself to do it though. I tell you I almost always tip gas station attendants You know down here in latin america. There are no self-serve gas stations least i've never seen one yet Oh and believe it or not probably have to pump attendance our ladies and you know, I almost always tip them I'll usually fill the tank up costs 50 bucks or something, right? And i'll give the lady attendant 50 cents or a buck Oh, and i'll tip male attendants too. That is if they've got a smile and they're nice There are people, you know that simply hate their jobs. Not as many down here That's for sure, but there are some not many but when I run into one, I won't tip him

[15:54] You know, they've got that certain look on their face kind of irritable Of course, those are the outliers. Most people are just happy as can be Even working the shittiest jobs. They find time to smile laugh and just joke around with each other Man, don't we all wish we had that going for us? I mean being upbeat and happy and enjoying your job even if it is a shit job that's going nowhere All right moving on, you know, I mentioned in a previous show that here throughout latin america There are call centers everywhere. In fact right now in some latin american countries. They're the third and fourth biggest employer Little do they realize however in the next two to five years It's been predicted by ai specialists that nine out of ten of those call centers Will either go out of business or lay off all their human help

[16:41] So you have to wonder what's going to happen to all those call center workers when they finally get laid off and it's coming soon Oh and down here in latin america, there have always been two kinds of call centers Spanish language call centers and bilingual call centers the bilingual ones Always paying their workers at least 20 percent more Because the clients the people they deal with are living up in the states canada and in europe People with much more disposable income than the latino population living in central and south america Oh and those bilingual call centers are nicer more well equipped in nicer neighborhoods higher class in general Not that that will make much difference in the next two or three years when they all go out of business Which brings us to the latest greatest call center scandal here in latin america Now I don't know if this news got to the wire services up in the states, but

[17:29] Man, it's all over social media and the wire services down here Let me read the title off of one of the news feeds. It says 13 were charged in a call center scheme that scammed american seniors out of 5 million bucks. All right, let me translate some of the bullet points for you It says a group of scammers using artificial intelligence Based out of a dominican republic call center Swindled hundreds of american seniors out of more than 5 million dollars over the past three months 13 dominicans have been charged For their alleged role in the scheme which tricked at least 400 american seniors living in the us Into handing over their savings by faking family emergencies over the phone turns out using ai artificial intelligence

[18:14] They were able to speak to seniors over the phone in perfect english in the voice of a known relative The scheme worked like this Victims received calls from someone pretending to be a grandchild who was in a car accident Under arrest or another dire situation reports lee foley u.s Attorney for the district of massachusetts where almost all the american victims lived What makes this scheme new and different is that the suspects at the call centers? Hired what they called both openers and closers Filtered through ai to carry out the calls The opener would pretend to be the grandchild needing money to resolve the issue While a closer would pretend to be a lawyer and demand cash for their work to get the person out of the jam

[19:02] It was quite a sophisticated scheme They also hired people in the us in massachusetts known as runners Who would then pick up the cash or the elderly person and take them to the bank all done through uber and rideshare drivers The cash was then laundered and transferred to the dominican republic This is not a one-off scam and it's happening all over latin. America. It's a highly coordinated criminal operation So then how did the scheme get revealed? How did they get caught? Well, it turns out uber's got a global security group They identified the scam after certain drivers uber drivers alerted their security group when certain suspicious situations arose like Taking elderly customers to banks or atms Withdrawing large sums of cash and repeatedly dropping off documents to the same locations according to the massachusetts da

[19:54] They know of at least 400 people who were scammed But there are many many more victims who are just too embarrassed to come forward The average age of the old fart american victims 84 so then how were the victims selected through the victims and their grandkids instagram and fake book posts AI helped accumulate vital data on family members neighborhoods They live in ages of the kids parents occupations banks. They use credit card maximums and limits schools They go to cars. They drive likes and dislikes music They listen to friends they have in common places. They hang and where they go on vacation Hmm. Yeah, so that's what we have to look forward to AI helping crooks scam people Now personally, you have to feel bad for those scammed seniors

[20:40] An 84 year old person born in 1940 is no match for AI And a bunch of savvy internet scammers and hackers, but those young kids they're idiot nieces and nephew When they post every restaurant they go to every crap they take every minute of their wasted and useless lives on insta crap Tiktok what's up and everything else When they get scammed i've got zero sympathy for them and when they're clueless idiot fake book and insta crap obsessed Soccer mom parents get scammed. I've got no sympathy for them either In fact the more stuff you post about yourself and your family on the internet The more you advertise all the shit you have and all the trips you take The more you're likely to get scammed and now that the bad guys have figured out with AI They can scam people worldwide. All I can say is hold on to your wallet. The worst is yet to come

[21:27] But that's not all think about this You've got a third world call center where people don't even speak english Convincing old non-internet savvy people up in the states to turn over large sums of cash man Just two or three years ago before AI who could have predicted that here's the other thing thinking about the future I'm glad I don't have kids And if I did how could I possibly advise them on what they should pick as a career for the future with AI changing everything? What are you supposed to tell them be a plumber while soon enough robots will do that too You listeners out there with kids. What are you telling them? Believe it or not. I get emails from people on the subject of AI I know this show is about living working playing and doing business in latin america and getting the hell out of dodge in general Still I get emails about everything with lots of the themes having absolutely nothing to do with latin america

[22:16] Like for example this one, but it's pertinent This one's from john. He says once I called my insurance company and thought the call center lady sounded a little odd She was helpful and efficient. All right, but something just wasn't right At the end of the call. I asked her if she was a robot. I said you sound like a robot. Are you a robot? Then there was a pause no laughter. No response Yep, i'd been head. I was pretty pissed off I think they were just rolling it out at the time and testing But damn johnny when they work out the kinks game over for all call center people Then he says, you know johnny united healthcare laid off all their call center workers But outsourced them to the philippines

[23:02] All that after announcing record profits So I sort of can't believe the company would go through all that once again with an ai call center Not right away. Anyway, but as soon as ai can flawlessly design buildings or design moving parts It'll be game over for engineers and architects, too So he says for now i'm encouraging my son to be a mechanical engineer Or otherwise just start learning how to program large language models or build off grid ai He says he believes the human touch will always beat ai unless Like you johnny you're in sales. You don't know it, but your podcast is a sales landing page It will be a long time before ai can compete with individual personalities like yours I don't know what will happen at that point though signed john t

[23:51] My response. Well john, I think it's game over already Many of my engineering buddies say they're ready for ai But they're not ready to give advice to their kids or gen z on how to plan their careers They don't want to go there What comforts most of my engineering buddies is the fact that they got into crypto for them It's a big buffer for whatever happens in the future They keep a big chunk of their capital and things like bitcoin And there's a certain percentage of it. They'll never touch at all That's sort of their insurance policy against ai killing huge sectors of the job market And as far as ai competing with podcasters or people with special personality traits I hate to say this, but I know some podcasters out there who've tested that theory They've had a large language model ai train up using every podcast they've ever produced

[24:38] Everything they've ever written or posted and in fact one particular podcaster I know says it's the eeriest thing in the world, but he can sit and talk to himself Have conversations about anything and everything with himself and his ai counterpoint or clone Not only sounds just like him with the same inflections laugh sense of humor, etc In many ways it seems smarter than he is And why wouldn't it be because not only does it have access to all his podcasts? Everything he's ever said or written it also has access to everything that's been said or written by any podcast And everything that's ever been recorded said or written on the internet The key is it remembers everything whereas my podcaster buddy who prefers to remain nameless admits

[25:23] He's got big holes in his memory like all humans. He can't remember things He spoke about in podcasts just a month or two ago. How about you? Can you remember conversations you had with people that took place a couple of months ago? I think not because our brains don't work that way We've only got so much gray matter and we can't remember everything if we did Eventually our neurons we get all clocked up. In fact, that's what they say sleep is for recent studies and experiments point out It's a way for your brain to delete information. You just don't need to recall anymore For example old memories that you don't draw on anymore at all Why would your brain want to waste the energy storing stuff? You never take time to think about a recall anymore So at night you do a flush like for example conversations or things you read in fourth grade music class

[26:09] If you're thinking an ai clone of yourself wouldn't be able to remember that either Well, one thing it could do that you can't is it could reconstruct That time period that school the class all the people that are in that class the syllabus Check out the memories of people online who were in that class with you check the architectural plans of the school Create a perfect image of the classroom and where you sat in relation to the other kids Remember it's got access to an infinite amount of information online can do a fantastically in-depth search in 10 seconds Compile it all into a rational functional model something that might take a human being months to do And if you're talking with an ai and you're not satisfied with the results Just tighten up or broaden your request and it'll dig deeper

[26:54] It'll dive deep with a kind of rational obsession. No human alive could ever match Like having your own autistic savant super powered researcher at your command 24 seven. I know i'm digressing here But the fact is one sort of famous podcaster guy I know told me if you plan it right your podcast can go on forever Meaning decades or centuries and still be fresh and funny and filled with new topics You could continue your podcast in the same way without a hitch without anyone knowing if before you die You put your ai clone on the job. This is not a hypothetical either. It's been tested So mothers don't let your babies just grow up to be cowboys or podcasters You've been listening to the expat files living in latin america If you need some help with your own plan b we can schedule a one-on-one phone or skype consult

[27:42] Just send me an email the expat files at gmail.com And if you want to get on the waiting list for my next week long expat insider seminar in central america Where you're guaranteed to get a two to five year head start on your plan b. Send me an email the expat files at gmail.com nos vemos