Hi everyone,

Thinking ahead here, my wife's mother is not really that old, but am wondering if it doesn't make sense to start a health insurance plan. Presumably if you have a health insurance plan for a long time the price doesn't increase that much and they take better care of you.

The usual practice in Cambodia is just pay out of pocket, which, given how poor the Cambodian health system is often puts families in very difficult situations. For example, any quality healthcare is a pretty penny which means wiping out much of the family members' wealth. Or they can send mom and dad to a low cost, low quality place and feel guilty that they weren't willing to fork out for their family members.

Complicating the matter is the fact that it's actually difficult to assess the quality of healthcare- a lot of people just go on reputation, which is not really based on much, and hard to gather info. Or they base it on flashy appearances, like spacious, well decorated lobbies, etc. Meanwhile a lower cost clinic may be perfectly fine depending on the case.

I have no idea the cost of local insurance and how reliable it is. Does anyone have any experience they can share?