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a couple of years ago, a young woman some them the MidwestI think with terminal brain cancer moved with her husband to Portland for the chance to have the choice to die. . It got quite a bit of publicity so here was a huge fuss on social media but her husband and parents went with her.and she went peacefully as she wanted. Have read of people with non-terminal but life changing situations like a stroke who have gone to Switzerland where you can be given the necessary drugs without Oregon's six month terminal diagnosis rule. . Many who don'[t agree with that choice call it outright euthanasia and argue that it leads to killing Granny or something similar. I think even in Switzerland that wouldn't happen since you do have to be in a hospital with doctors present I believe. Perhaps folks who aren't undergoing similar suffering should allow others who are to have the choice without judging

Yeah - I always knew about Medicare and always planned to drop United - just was curious since San Antonio hospital seems to be advertising that they do take various insurances but that may indeed only be for tourists. Have stop worrying about health - will move on to bank accounts.

Dottiejane, you are correct about the fees and care availability in many of the care homes. However, while day to day expenses are affordable, serious medical intervention and hospital care is, as I stated earlier, cheapER NOT cheap. Many retirees thinking about an escape to this lovely area have simply started too late in life for it to be affordable. Many assume that their Medicare or even insurance from a retirement benefits package will cover them here and think no more about it until they find out that it will not. That is sad and puts one in a difficult position, in addition to having to financially qualify for permanent/temporary residency. I am the one that suggested the $250,000 health care slush fund, based upon personal experience. In cases of brain surgery or multiple illnesses, that might wipe it all out in a year or two. There is no need to be confused. It boils down fairly simply. #1 You must qualify for Temporary or Permanente Residency. If you cannot be covered under your current Medicare plan here in Mexico, then you have only a couple options : * After you qualify for residency, go ahead and live life with no insurance, hope for the best and pay for any and all medical care + transportation yourself. There is no safety net here. After you exhaust all your funds, you will be sent home. That is the end of life for many. That is also when we see the Go Fund Me campaigns. * After you qualify for residency, see if you can enroll in the Federal Health Insurance, maybe with exclusions for pre-existing conditions. Be prepared for long wait times, and sometimes you will NOT get to see the DR even if you had an appointment. Expect repeat visits every month for Rxs, but sometimes the meds are available and sometimes they are not. There may be open and mixed sex wards if you are hospitalized, and you will need to bring your own linens, toilet paper, soap, towels, nightgowns, water, even food and your daily care items + pay for someone to be with you 24/7 and they or you will need to speak Spanish. Nurses there do not do that kind of patient care. That is what families are for. Many people come for 6 months, stay as a tourist and use their Medicare. Or, you can buy travel insurance. Problem is that immigration is no longer automatically granting 6 months visas. SKY MED if you are stable enough to be transported back to your home in the USA. Of course, if you have to be in hospital for a while to be stabilized, you must pay. It sounds cruel,but moving to Mexico is certainly not for the poor, not for people on fixed incomes with no cash backup, or even many of the middle class who are tethered to the Medicare System or the insurance in their retirement package. I wish you luck.

Very powerful. Thank you. My father-In-law, who was a second father to me, suffered from a calcified esophagus after radiation cancer treatment twenty years before. He couldn’t stand a feeding tube. After consultation with his Priest, He booked himself into an Ottawa hospital and stopped eating until he died. The memory haunts me still. May I die a more peaceful, and managed death. SunFan

Perhaps the current policy of hugs without bullets is not working.

In general I think Mexican nationals tip for many services but not all services, such as haircuts, pedicures for example. I tip too much and sometimes I tip too little but I still tip. And if I am short once, then I remember and make it up on another day. The expats who annoy me are the ones who leave centavos as a tip. That is not a tip, that is a blatant insult.

Rick- I lived in Denver for years starting in 1968 when it truly was a COWTOWN - Both of my kids are still there and busy with their own families and worrying about the rising cost of living so helping Mother is not an option. Moved to Portland 9 years ago only to be confronted with another huge rise in the cost of living as well as the sad decline of this lovely city. Many are in my situation in that I was never indigent - I had a house, a car , food on the table and even alot of trips. But single parenthood, too early retirement (my fault) and the choice to enter a not very well paying career ,led me (and many women Iknow) into the situation I am in today. . I have enough to live a fairly decent comfortable if simple life But if I needed assisted living and/or nursing care I would need to "spend down" as they say and go into a Medicaid facility . It is somewhat sad to see what a "limited income" is these days. Didn't that used to be the middle class? Since I have no idea what the future holds, I am holding my nose so to speak and taking the plunge and letting the universe guide me It has gotten me through 84 years with only the normal amount of trauma so perhaps it will continue for the next few.

Thanks for the information - have thought about all of this at length of course and am well aware that age is a problem for almost everything. Even if I stayed here with Medicare and health insurance, I would not undergo drastic costly medical treatment just to get another couple of months of non-active dependent living. I carried on the family tradition of no colds but a lot of cancer and expect that is what will get me in the end and if it does, I will go gently into the night. Right now, I want to live my remaining years in the sunshine, eating good food, meeting new people,l learning Spanish and maybe even buying a bike.. I have decided I can't live these next years however long they are, worrying about what MIGHT happen and giving up the joys of the moment. But understand your points.

At Intercam the social security checks are deposited into the account at full value for the time/date. Unlike when I deposit a Wells Fargo check. They take out 0.6%, I think it is. Intercam has the $5000 max per day withdrawal from an Intercam ATM with an Intercam Debit card. The policy is determined by Intercam Mexico, not the local account executive. If you an US bank cards there is no problem with more withdrawals. I once watched a man making around 8 withdrawals from the Intercam ATM at the LCS. When I asked him about it he said he was paying his bills, and he was not using an Intercam card. Lucky for me there was still money in the machine when I withdrew my $5000.

artsnob, are you using an Intercam card? Intercam max has always been $5000 and only one transaction per day. Other cards, no problem.

My Golden Retriever was reading this post and she can not stop laughing at the "slavishly obedient" (any way got to go she just instructed me to get her tennis balls 😊).

Karl Marx, the person whose name is synonymous with Socialism (Marxism) foisted this on a huge country with horrendous results, which was continued by Stalin resulting in the starvation and brutal deaths of millions and millions of innocent people. Maybe Russia also was "leaning towards socialism" before they FELL into full blown Communism and look at the results. Putin and his people would not call him a dictator, he has been elected multiple times!!! Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, a self-described Marxist was elected THREE times, before he ran out of other people’s money and it all came crashing down. He started with a flourishing Democratic, Capitalistic country sitting on the largest sea of oil in the world and took it to one of the poorest where it languishes today…most of the population well under the poverty line, lack of medicine, huge infant mortality, bread lines a mile long with a quarter of the population fleeing elsewhere. Hitler was elected under the banner of the National Socialist Party. They and others, all did (and are currently doing) this by gaining control of education, the media (implementing State media and of course today all those insane social media platforms), the military, guns and creating gigantic spy networks. Children almost from birth are spoon-fed the dogma that they are just one cog in the system and have no individual rights. The general population is brainwashed, bamboozled, buffaloed, bullied, bloodied, and bruised into the idea of a one party system that controls your life and everything that you do and think is for the good of all. Is today our Northern neighbors "leaning" towards Socialism? You betcha booty!!! However thankfully some of the saner folks up there (mothers of schoolchildren in the US, and truckers in Canada) are putting the brakes of this. However I have my fears since as a student of history I know that most real Democracies (eg. the Greeks and the Romans) have a shelf life of only a few centuries before this insanity infects the public, thinking that they can spend thier way into Utopia. The US national debt Is now US$30TRILLION...that's $30,000,000,000,000!!! Now lets bring this back here to good old México, and lakeside specifically. Remember the old Mexican dicho, "When the US sneezes México catches the flu". What's going to be the impact here when the crash happens (and it will)? Hard to imagine but it will not be a pretty picture!!!

This article is an interesting read to understand vanilla extract vs other options. https://queen.com.au/vanilla-extract-vanilla-essence-whats-difference/

I use vaniilla beans in all the pastries I can use them and the flavour does not compare. You boil the bean in a little milk cut it open and scrape the pulp out..It is delicious. The volafores are not all canilla growers sl you have to ask..The ones I buy from.do grow vanilla and process it..i doubt they use artificial vanilla but it is not cheap... Why anyone would buy at costco or sl over the producers of vanilla is beyond me..

An option for the terminally ill. Mexico Euthanasia

Avenida Madero and Las Redes. Redes just means nets, it could mean networks or even internet. But in the case of the neighborhood Las Redes it just means fisherman nets. Haha. You got to love auto-translate.

Get the vanilla with no coumarin as it is a blood thinner and has been banned in the US.

Your chip on a ship....

No, it's not about price or service. I just thought someone could use a good laugh this morning. This actually happened last fall. I can laugh now but, at the time, it was kind of alarming. There are no electrical or gas line inspections in Mexico. There are no licensed electricians or plumbers or gas fitters. When I moved into this house, the fountain in the courtyard was fully functional... with an electrical outlet for the circulating pump on the ground right next to it. Nope. Not gonna use that fountain. I drained it and waited for everything to be really dry and then, very carefully, unplugged the recirculating pump. I filled the fountain with pea gravel and put pots of flowers in it. Fast forward five years and I'm sitting at my desk with the patio door open. POP, POP, POP! in rapid succession. WTF? I walked out to the courtyard and there was a blue flame sprouting from the bottom of my "fountain" drain hole. Just a little disconcerting. It wasn't a roaring flame and I knew that the gas line goes over my house and that the previous gas line was no longer in use. The flame was getting softer. I finally realized that the old electrical connection in the ground had corroded and ignited the residual gas in the old line that has continued to deteriorate under the courtyard and house. The flame is out. I sighed in relief and thought the problem was finished. I check my solar panels daily online. I also check the meter to see how many kWH I have stashed by seeing the difference between the two flashing numbers. My saved kWH was going down at a fairly rapid rate and I couldn't figure out why. My solar panels were producing and I hadn't changed anything else. I called the electrician and told him that I suspected that the old corroded courtyard outlet was shunting electricity to ground because I sure wasn't using it. Two minutes after he arrived, he confirmed my fear and fixed the problem. Two holes in the wall later, he has found the wire to that electrical outlet and disconnected it. Problem solved. Never a dull moment.

Why is there even a discussion on this??? This is a free country and you have a choice. I personally try to give 15% if the service is good and less if not. A no brainer!!!

It will be a cold day in h*ll when I leave only a 10% tip to waiters here in Mexico. What anyone else does is, of course, their business.

I have been with MultiVa for mucho years. My big problem is that I can sometimes use my debit card online (Mercado Libre) and sometimes it gets rejected. Also, can I get my SS deposited directly into a Mx bank? I never heard that. If I can, that might be a better deal for me. What does anyone know on the SS direct sdeposit? Thanks.

No I use Bank OF America card