#948 – The Expat Files: Health Insurance, Legal Challenges, and Life in Latin America

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 out to play and now that I wonder Hello there all you ex-pat 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 start with some emails again, man You know, they've been flooding in cuz well everybody's sitting at home and they're loading up on podcasts YouTube's Cheetos green stuff and Netflix right this one comes from mr. H. He says Johnny

[00:46] Many thanks for your health care report One question though on page 60 of your report you talk about medical insurance offered through bank says the underwriter Might you possibly have a link or reference to such an insurance slash bank that offers the coverage in multiple Latin countries? because unfortunately for me report is mainly in that section anyway targeted to Guatemala and Group o medics that you highlight seems to cover just Guatemalan residents By the way, I'm originally from Uruguay and I've been living in the states for way too many years But I do not recall any bank offering such a service in Uruguay. Oh, and it's not Uruguay. It's A frame of reference he's talking about with my Latin American health care report. Here's a direct quote in line from that report

[01:32] We're talking about the health care coverage that a lot of banks offer here in Latin America Once you sign up in many cases, just getting a bank account makes you eligible for their insurance Whether you're a gringo or not though I can't get an account as a gringo unless you've got permanent or temporary residency not although so here's what my report says on page The cheapest rates are for coverage in the country where you've signed on for Examples Nicaragua Guatemala Uruguay or whatever Latin country though You'll pay slightly higher rates if you choose a plan that has multiple Latin country coverage or worldwide coverage. All right, mr H let me explain that if you check out a list of the banks in any single Latin country You'll find probably 90% of them are banks that only exist within that particular country

[02:21] So naturally if you're banking at one particular bank like for example in Guatemala Banco industrial the second biggest bank there They have a great insurance plan by the way and to qualify all you have to do is open up a passbook account Believe it or not. They've got a number of plans to choose from you know Good better best and deluxe and believe it or not. You don't even need a physical to get into the plan That's amazing, isn't it? However, that is one of the banks you need to have permanent or temporary residents to get an account and thus Eligibility for insurance. Anyway that Banco industrial plan that a lot of gringos and expats will come down to Guatemala Hook on to right away because it is a good plan and costs under a hundred bucks a month Now the premiums are adjusted in five-year increments. The premiums escalate a bit naturally with every five years

[03:08] You're in the plan that's common to a lot of plans here in Latin America But not every plan works that way Anyway, what I'm saying is that if you hook into that Banco industrial plan in Guatemala You will not be able to get worldwide coverage or coverage within other countries because that bank only exists in Guatemala So when looking for health care insurance issued by a bank keep that in mind now I'd say that 80% of the banks in any Latin country are local banks They don't have branches in other countries That means you could have an absolutely great health insurance plan Like the one Banco industrial offers and have no coverage or very minimal coverage if you get hurt or something happens to you outside The country, but here's a tip and what I always recommend Whatever Latin American health insurance plan you have and I do recommend you get one

[03:54] They're so damn cheap and you get such great coverage Well, if for example, let's take Banco industrial again You get hurt or in a car crash or whatever in let's say Mexico or El Salvador or Uruguay My advice if you get sick or hurt and end up in an emergency room or hospital bed give your doctors and the personnel there an immediate order to just stabilize you and Arrange transportation immediately back to a Guatemalan hospital or clinic where you're fully covered And you know if you look up the stance on for example car Accidents when people end up in the emergency room or the hospital normally in perhaps 95% of the cases a person's normally stabilized within a single day Or in fact hours and even though a hospital stay anywhere in Latin America in a premium hospital, too

[04:42] Will only cost you at most 200 bucks a day in a regular room and believe me I'm overstating that because I know some Guatemalan hospitals that are absolutely first-rate private Of course where the room rate for a private room is something like $60 a night They've even got deluxe suites with two separate rooms two bathrooms and a kitchenette for under a hundred bucks a night in other words if you opt for a suite you have your own private room and Adjacent to yours is where any family member two or three can stay and sleep over and man when I talk about a deluxe suite That's the truth now I know there's some non-believers out there But every time I do one of my Exped Insiders seminars We go to a hospital and I show people a regular private room that runs around $60 a night and a suite

[05:31] Exactly like I've mentioned for slightly under a hundred bucks a night and the gringos and expats were tagging along They just can't believe it So you doubters out there if you come to my upcoming Exped Insider seminar Which will be kicking off on August 21st. That's a Friday finishing a week later August 27th the following Thursday night You'll be getting some extremely valuable boots on the ground and you'll see for yourself exactly what I'm talking about But I digress as usual Anyway, as far as having bank insurance and having coverage in other Latin American countries or even worldwide There are some banks that do offer such plans Electrically, these are banks that have branches in many different Latin countries Like for example, there's a very big international Latino bank called BAC It's got branches in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Cayman Islands, etc, etc

[06:23] So if you've got an account with them and you like to get one of their health care plans You'll be covered in a country you signed up in and if you elect any of those other countries, too So with that plan you can elect to have complete Central American and Caribbean island coverage By the way, if for example you look up Colombian banks, you'll find out they've got over 50 That's more than 50 banks in Colombia. Talk about confusing, huh? So then how do you choose a bank? Well, you let your lawyer help you do that. He'll know the strongest and the best ones Otherwise you'll end up getting all kinds of opinions from tipsy gringos and expat bars And in that case, believe me It's like putting on a blindfold and throwing a dart and of course not all of them offer health care plans to their clients But some do oh and just another tip which is really a warning if and when you select your particular Latin American bank

[07:13] Never select one that has a branch in the United States because you know, they can lock up your account with a phone call That's the power of the US Treasury and State Department So always do business with a bank that has no affiliations with the US the only way they'll ever be able to come after you and The dough that you might have in a bank in a foreign country is by filing a lawsuit in your Latin country That means they have to send lawyers down get a court date file all the correct paperwork in Spanish Suffer through the typical delays postponements and money on the time on steroids Oh and by the way It'll have to hire a local Latin attorney to to stand up in court and plead their case Because it has to be a lawyer who's passed the bar in that Latin country It doesn't matter if you're Perry Mason or Clarence Darrow

[08:00] You can't plead a case as a lawyer in Latin America unless you've passed the bar there and it's in Spanish That's why according to my lawyer friends There hasn't been a single case where the US government or anybody from up in the first world has been able to lock down Someone's bank account in Guatemala and we'll use Guatemala as a test case here since we've been talking about it But that's pretty much the case with every single Latin American country In other words when you're down here working out your plan B Do not open a bank account at one of the usual suspects like Citibank Bank of America Scotia Bank or any bank that's got a branch in the US though all those usual suspect banks are down here and more But I digress again. Where are we? Oh, yeah Finally, mr. H says Johnny I'm from Uruguay and I can't recall any bank down there offering such a service

[08:48] All right. So here's my response to that go on the web and look up the banks of Uruguay By the way, I'd say 90% of all the Latin American bank websites are in Spanish though Generally, the top three will have a little icon that says click for English Same thing with the websites of those Miami partial and courier services. I'm always talking about let's face it If you order from Amazon eBay or anywhere in the states, you'll need one of those Miami boxes Anyway, if you check the websites of the top three banks and practically all of the Miami courier service websites You'll see on their main page an icon to click for English Good news, huh? But many times that icons hidden in plain sight details details It's just the fact they've got a third world way of doing websites down here, too

[09:35] So don't despair if it's not obvious. It doesn't pop out at you. It's probably there You just have to do a little digging. So anyway, mr. H if you're looking for a bank in Uruguay that offers those options Just go to each of their websites on the main page and check out the services they offer Take my word for it in the last few years banks have been really jumping on this insurance thing Why because they're businesses they want to expand to and they've got an instant list of thousands of customers and clients to market to Who already have accounts they can do direct withdrawals from every month to pay to premium the perfect? captive audience Speaking of captive audiences. Here's an email from felon Travis. That's right felon Travis now if you think his mother played a cruel trick or was high when she named him keep listening

[10:23] It's not what you think. He says dear Johnny. Love your show. Love your views. Love your attitude You are the voice of reason and sanity and my and many other people's lives. Thank you first my story I'm a felon that spent the last seven and a half years in prison for drugs and gun charges I was recently released in December of last year I'm now 32 years old and know that I need to catch a lifeboat off the Titanic as a felon in this The USS a surveillance Orwellian police state, etc. Etc. I know my rights are moot The bureaucracy won't even pretend that I'm innocent until proven guilty. They'll just lock me up whenever it suits them Should any event resembling a crime occur near me knowing this I have diligently saved as much money as possible while delivering pizza the only job I can get being a felon and I've learned a

[11:16] considerable amount of Spanish both while incarcerated and free so Johnny my question for you Should you have any insight on the matter and any time to spare to answer it? Is there anything else I should be doing or could be doing to prepare my exit the moment my probation officer gives me the green light to leave Even if that means I have to get a lawyer to make this all happen Anyway, thanks for your time and consideration as well as everything you do you give us hope sir and for that I'm eternally grateful. So that's about it since now. I have to go deposit something in a cup for my benevolent overlords Sincerely felon Travis. All right. Thanks for that FT You know, I always knew I was number one with a bullet with guys and gals in the slammer

[12:01] Hmm Freudian slip there maybe with a bullet. Why do I think that? Well, because FT your email is not not by a long shot The only one I've gotten from people in and out of the slammer expressing the same concerns stranger yet I also know a lot of people in my felon cheering section are women and really before you go judging felons I'm talking to you non felonies listeners now Remember about 50% of felons or even more have been in or out of the slammer for white-collar crimes that aren't even a crime in other countries like for example in Latin America and a huge percentage of Felons are in and out of jail for drug crimes that aren't even crimes anymore Because everybody knows state by state and country by country drug laws are being eliminated as we speak

[12:46] So bottom line don't jump the conclusions when you hear someone's a felon Because he or she may not be a bad guy at all just a victim of circumstances bad luck and bad timing I mean look when you reflect on your own life, how many times did you do something yourself? And if you'd had bad luck either ended up in the slammer yourself Whether it was over the limit drunk and driving token in the boys room doing weed ecstasy cheating on your taxes I mean look if you went to college, you know, you broke a lot of laws You just didn't get caught by the authorities. You were lucky. Then again, there's that three felony a day hypothesis Not really a hypothesis. It's a fact, you know, I got a brilliant engineer brother who's got three DUIs Spent 30 days in the slammer. He's a felon now. Luckily. He works for no one

[13:35] He's his own boss, but he's a great brilliant honest guy problem is when he drinks. He's not Every family's got one right or two or ten though. Here's the problem I see for guys like felon Travis by the way that first name felon no joke not so long ago I was in a taxicab and the guy's name was on his taxi ID card Felon Hernandez Latino guy. He didn't speak English and he pronounced it felon little French accent Yeah, like that's supposed to give him a leg up man. What was his mother thinking? Some people just shouldn't have kids You know what you name a kid has a great influence on how he ends up or turns out in life All you have to do is look at wealthy parents what they name their kids Check out the names of kids that are going to Ivy League schools whose parents have though

[14:22] That is that versus the names of middle and lower middle-class kids that go to two-year community colleges I mean, let's face it You don't see many CEOs of fortune 500 companies with names like Jamal or Deshaun or Lakeisha But there are plenty of Bradley's Jacobs and Dylan's so what brought me to this digression? Well, the thing is here in Latin America Latino parents have gone into overdrive on the hard to pronounce hard to spell crazy ass names a lot of them taken from popular But ridiculous first world culture that is if you want to call rap hip-hop music videos and reality shows culture Yep for Latinos everything gringo is cool. Believe it or not There are lots of innocent little kids running around up in the first world and down here in Latin America with ridiculous names like felon

[15:07] Excuse me Felon Yep, you got to wonder how some of those names are gonna play out in job interviews In fact, my brother's got some rental units in Chicago and he's got a guy renting His name is Deshaun like the mustard and another guy named Bentley like the car only his mom screwed up and spelled it wrong So there it is misspelled on his birth certificate, but let's get back to the point You know if you're a felon and you're planning on getting the hell out of Dodge, of course first You'll need a passport and yes, you can get one You're entitled to one as a US citizen However, as long as you're on probation, they won't let you leave the country. You're a flight risk So as felon Travis says in his email, he has to wait till his probation is over Then he'll be coming on down as you probably know when you come down to any Latin American country

[15:54] You usually get a three-month tourist visa entry stamp Then after that you're required to leave the country get another stamp on your passport You have to wait a day or more before you can come back in and if you stay over and a lot of people do Sometimes for years and years they charge a 50 cents a buck or two bucks a day Depending on the country doesn't sound like much but that can really add up if you spend months or even years in country That's one of the reasons why once you settle in a Latin country that you like It's a good idea to apply for permanent or temporary residency Then you're never forced to go in and out every 90 days as mentioned problem is though as a felon You'll never be able to qualify for permanent or temporary residency But still that shouldn't stop you from fulfilling your plan B and coming on down So what if you have to make a quick trip out of the country every 90 days?

[16:43] Do note you can in some cases work the system legally and actually stay a year without going in and out Because you see all Latin countries offer tourist visa Extensions that involves going to a couple of government buildings standing in line for a couple hours paying depending on the country from 20 to 50 bucks or if you have a Latin lawyer, which I always recommend you do have you could put the visa extension thing in his Hands and you won't have to stand in those lines. So anyway felon Travis or felon Travis Even though that felon thing will follow you around wherever you go You can still activate your plan B and get the hell out of Dodge You'll just have to settle for the fact that you'll probably never be able to get permanent or temporary residency But at least you still have options that said once you've got that passport in your hand and you're no longer on probation

[17:31] Just shoot me an email and I'll hook you up with a trusted Latin lawyer He'll be able to guide you through all that Help you with a bank account internet and utility hookups We'll be there for you when you have to sign a rental contract and if and when you need an extension on your tourist visa Plus you might have a backdoor workaround for actually getting residency You never know because things are always changing and what we thinks a lot today just might be changed or different tomorrow Plus many Latino lawyers have connections and workarounds. They'll discuss with you in private No guarantees, but believe me, they've got their ways. So good luck Keep the faith and don't lose sight of your plan B Alright now a few words about the virus things have remained pretty much the same Most countries are on two four or five hour in the afternoon lockdown

[18:18] There's virtually no air travel or border crossings though all the gas stations doctors offices clinics pharmacies, etc Remain open during the day. Oh and to show you just how low people are on dough I was just at a regular petrol station a gas station that has a couple of lanes for filling LP gas tanks You know propane tanks because as mentioned almost everyone here in Latin America has LP gas for their stoves Anyway, I had my own empty 50 pound tank in the trunk of my car and got in line to have it filled up It cost me well under 20 bucks And you know a 50 pound tank holds about eleven and three-quarters gallons of LP gas So in other words following this huge drop in gas prices these days LP gas is down to well under two bucks a gallon

[19:04] Anyway, I couldn't help but notice a lot of little rice burner motorcycles were pulling up with empty 25 pound tanks Now a 100 pound tank holds about 23 gallons of LP gas and a five pound tank around five and a half gallons So that means that a buck fifty a gallon it will cost around eight bucks to fill a regular 25 gallon LP tank By the way down here in Latin America those 25 gallon LP tanks are pretty much exactly the same ones you use up north For your home barbecue. The thing is at that station. I got a wake-up call as to how broke everyone really is Just watching these little guys fill up their gas tanks. No, I'm not talking about their gas tanks for their motorcycles I'm talking about the 25 gallon propane tanks They're gonna haul back to their house and use for the stove

[19:49] So like I said, it takes about eight bucks to fill one of those tanks and while I was standing there I watched at least five of these guys on motorcycles get their LP tanks filled None of them said fill it up. None of them had the eight bucks to top off their tanks I saw a guy fill his halfway with four bucks another guy with one dollar a guy spent two dollars and one guy Spent 50 cents man that reeks of desperation reminds me when I pull into a gas station in high school 50 cents, please and for that chump change the guy would never wash my windows. Oh well Anyway, I saw that at the gas station yesterday and we've probably got another month Maybe two to go with a partial lock down and ninety to ninety-five percent of people not going to work Now it turns out most Latin American governments have promised their citizens a handout

[20:36] Either in cash or with a food voucher. For example, if you're an Ecuador and you have a settler They've promised sixty dollars a month per family, which admittedly ain't much But here in Latin America as mentioned a million times most everything produced locally within a particular country's borders Especially when it comes to fruits and vegetables, etc is a quarter or less What you pay for this stuff at Walmart up in the States, but still 60 bucks, man That's pretty lame though better than the usual broken political promises and lies Then you've got a place like the Dominican Republic where they're giving out about a hundred bucks per family in food vouchers Which is good because then they can't go out buy cigarettes and booze So a handout with 50 to 100 bucks a month. So they say seems to be the range here in Latin America

[21:22] Though it's anybody's guess as to whether these governments have the dough To do another round of handouts next month. After all in no way Can they rev up the printing presses like the US can but that's not the only problem when governments announce such handouts on social media Man, it goes viral and in about a half an hour Everyone knows there's free money to be had and there's no such thing as direct deposits So they announce a place you can go and pick up your voucher or your dough Usually a big commercial center or some stately but useless government building then in a matter of minutes The lines are suddenly blocks long. Yep. The crowds are gigantic It's like a huge tailgate party without the beer and everyone's spaced three feet apart though the people are generally very calm and complacent because they're used to standing for hours and hours in government lines and

[22:12] Still most people in line even as they get up to the front window to collect whatever it's gonna be They don't quite believe they're gonna get it surprise surprise. They don't trust their government. Hmm sound familiar Speaking of hoarding, you know since most people don't have two nickels to rub together here in Latin America At least not within a few hours after they receive their paychecks. That sounds familiar too. Anyway, so far I haven't come across any case of people hoarding stuff Of course, that depends on your definition of hoarding you tell me is perhaps having a thousand rolls of toilet paper hoarding What about 500? What about a hundred or fifty? I don't know. There's no standard definition of hoarding now, is there? I noticed that Jay Leno who I happen to like a lot has 270 cars

[22:59] Obviously a socialist leaning bureaucrat would say that's hoarding. He must be arrested You think his cars confiscated and distributed amongst the have-nots Maybe according to Bernie an occasional cortex and now I'd like to bring up something I never ever hear people talking about but I think about it once in a while myself In fact, I've been thinking about it for years for 30 years even more because I've been involved in it Yet no one wants to mention it Let me start off by saying when I was a real little kid I was in a marching band I played French horn and I got fairly good at it though It's not my favorite instrument It's not a solo instrument and you can't just sit around and pump out the tunes his people tell you to pipe down Especially when you're first learning and doing scales However, what most people don't know or if they know it they don't like to talk about it

[23:47] It's that every single woodwind instrument like a clarinet or oboe and brass instruments like French horns Have what you call a spit valve because you see the saliva the spit builds up in the instrument because you're blowing through it And it collects in the low point in the instrument or tubing So every once in a while maybe once every half an hour or so You have to clear the spit out of your instrument or it gurgles And you do that by pressing a little valve and giving your instrument a good bow Which forces the gob of spit out of your instrument on to the floor or the pants of the guy next to you You know that highly unsanitary procedure spent going on for more than 2,000 years Remember the horn that blew down the walls of Jericho. It's in the Bible, but they failed to mention the spit valve by the way

[24:33] Did you know there's a whole genre called Christian video games and one of the games is called the walls of Jericho? Who'da thunk, huh? But the point is people are so nuts about social distancing masks gloves coughing sneezing and washing face touching beards and mustaches Speaking of beards and mustaches that includes some of you grandmas and Middle Eastern ladies, too We've got all that but no one's talking about the spit valve dilemma Now one of my buddies from the old marching band days who I've discussed this with he writes Johnny I don't know what to tell you a lot of the churches I perform at have carpeting down in the areas where I sit and it's gross when you realize all Six guys in the horn section spits gonna end up there as for me He says I keep a small set of towels in my instrument case

[25:19] And I try to throw one on the floor when I'm stuck playing sitting in one place However, you know you rehearse in a variety of places like people's homes bedrooms living rooms dens hotel salons, etc There's no doubt when a band orchestra or jazz group plays spit will be everywhere Johnny we're used to it Auditoriums and rehearsal halls that regularly have brass performers in them are pretty much used to seeing little pools of spit everywhere up to now Anyway, our spit etiquette always prompted us to do it stealthily away from where people walked or stepped And you know before this corona thing it was always a chance that a little spit on the floor would be dangerous not for its Unhygienic effects, but because it could make the floor slippery, but now with the virus

[26:04] What's a brass woodwind or harmonica player to do? So yes, it would be nice to have some guidance on that But please not from government they screw up everything then he says Johnny in the end I think it's classy not to call too much attention to emptying out our spit Let's they ban horns and woodwinds all together or make us possibly put them in plastic bags and force us to try to play them like that All right me Johnny here. How about that for a completely different topic of discussion only on the expert files, huh? Now to my way of thinking that spells opportunity for any engineer or creative type Someone needs to design an add-on Something that taps in or screws into the spit valve and collects the saliva to be emptied and disposed of properly in a bathroom That's alleviating a 2,000 year old problem altogether. Maybe if I was a younger guy, I'd take a crack at it myself

[26:53] I'm sure there'd be millions in it. It would be mandated. All right, we're getting to the end of the show No, I'd like to remind you once again that my upcoming expat insider seminar in Guatemala and El Salvador That means we'll be at sea level and in the 6,000 foot altiplano It kicks off Friday August 21st through Thursday, August 27th It just might be your last chance on getting a two to five year head start on your plan B As you know by now, it really is time to get the hell out of dodge or go down with the ship So to get in on the early bird discounts and the updates send me an email the expat files at gmail.com 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

[27:39] 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