Reader question: Displaced in the Netherlands, what about your health insurance?

I do not know whether health insurance is the same thing that counts for us as Belgians, namely that upon return, even temporarily for family visits, etc., we have immediate access to medical assistance through the sickness law, based on nationality, no waiting time …..
This, regardless of whether we are now 70 years old, more or less, have received this confirmation on my question to mutuality, (for your name I suspect care fund or the like.)

Regardless of the fact of being deregistered from Belgium

Interesting question, I'd like to know the answer to that too.
And how is this regulated in the EU? Or does each country regulate separately?

Greetings Nico

Why do people ask their question so incompletely? But if I understand it: you are NL-er and out of NL, live elsewhere, become broke and without care, then you have to get back to NL. If someone wants to dock that ticket for you, at least otherwise you won't get out of here. Overstay maybe? Don't get into the detention center without help because you'll rot.

You arrive in NL, have no income or possibly a state pension, register in a municipality, then you have the obligation to take out a health care policy, then you collapse and the medical world does the rest. How to get by after that? There is social assistance, rent subsidy and more, it will not make you fat, but the basics are there and finally there is the food bank.

That of that Briton or Englishman used to be like that, the NSH, but that has long since come to an end. I believe that a Briton must first prove that he is a resident of Britain and that he is not just overnight. The NSH is free to residents. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Possibly those Swedes and English are right; This also applies to Belgians. I have deregistered in Belgium, registered in Thailand and retired. At the source, a certain percentage of my pension is deducted monthly as “State Social Security”, just the same if I were to live in Belgium. I therefore retain all my rights in case of hospitalization, doctor's visit, medication intervention, without waiting time, but must have this carried out in Belgium. So in Thailand I have taken out my own health/hospitalization insurance with sufficient coverage. In previous posts I saw that this is labeled as “terribly expensive and unaffordable”. Everyone has their own opinion about that, but I don't take any risks for 27.000THB/year as an over-60s and …. a person has to prioritize.

Reint wants to know whether someone who is uninsured against medical expenses receives (hospital) care in NL. Reint makes the question unnecessarily complicated by dragging in a Swede and an Englishman. Now the question is whether the care is free there. Could be, but irrelevant for the NL situation.

In the Netherlands, no one is allowed to be uninsured by law. Someone who returns from eg TH to NL is considered to be insured. See Rob V's answer. If you come back to NL as a pensioner, you will receive at least an AOW benefit. Which means that the premium of a basic insurance can be paid from this benefit, as all state pensioners do.

Now imagine the worst case scenario: a pensioner aged 71 (older or younger) arrives penniless at Schiphol and reports to the homeless shelter of the municipality of Haarlemmermeer. Employees there will help get the basic insurance application started. In NL, a health insurance fund is not allowed to refuse customers, so that will be fine. Then the doctor visits can get a start.

But of course Reint is concerned with the last 2 questions: “Does the government help?” No, of course not. The government has set up all kinds of legislation and institutions to assist people in need. But bear in mind that all childcare is ultimately paid for by good citizens who have stayed within limits and pay their premiums, taxes and contributions on time.

Then the last question: "Or are you left to your own devices?" No, of course not. No one is left to fend for themselves, even if in some situations it seems that way. But people really don't stand at Schiphol with a sign up and a limousine waiting for people who turned out to be unable or unwilling to take out proper insurance, to such an extent that medical expenses after their 70th birthday turned out to be covered.