Panama, The New Florida
Panama Star PANAMA. Panama is increasingly
popular among retirement-age types looking
to hedge against— or skip out on— the
recession, says a writer in the US magazine,
Business Week.
The country’s quality health care, low
costs, and proximity to the states are still
attracting American professionals as a
retirement haven, with Americans who are
looking for a better bang to their buck
setting their eyes on Panama, says Michelle
Conlin.
The Migration Policy Institute, a
Washington-based think tank that studies the
movement of people around the world, says
the chief factors prodding
professional-class Americans to move to
Panama include its First World health care
available at Third World prices and the
country's pensioner program, which offers
some of the deepest retiree discounts in
Latin America.
Seniors get big discounts on nearly
everything, including movies, motels,
doctors' visits, plane tickets, professional
services, and electric bills. Expats also
pay no tax in Panama on foreign income. Nor
are they required to pay property tax for
the first 20 years.
The fact that a luxe beach-front manse can
be had for the same price as a dump in
Daytona doesn't hurt, either. “We would have
been looking at $3 million in Miami,” says
Jon Nickel of his 3,000-square-foot
oceanfront penthouse in Panama City.
The skinny isthmus boasts some of the best
weather and lowest crime rates in Latin
America. Other draws include guilt-free
conspicuous consumption, with laughably low
prices— by gringo standards— on splurges
such as a day of beauty ($10) and a maid
($15 a day). A complete blood work-up at
Panama City's gleaming new Hospital Punta
Pacifica, managed by Johns Hopkins Medicine
International, is $36.
A checkup with a physician is $50. Boomers
who say they would have had to pay roughly
$1,200 a month in the US for health care say
they are paying roughly $800 a year for
coverage in Panama.
Barbara Dove, a 66-year-old who suffers from
Parkinson's disease, worried that she would
eventually need in-home care if her
condition deteriorates. Researching rates in
Seattle, she found that nurses run $25 an
hour. In Panama City, where she has lived
since 2007, they cost $25 a day.
According to the president of the Migration
Policy Institute, Demetrios Papademetriou:
“With Americans aging, the economy in
shambles, and, possibly, Medicare benefits
on the cutting block, it is reasonable to
assume that more Americans will retire
abroad, particularly to warm, sunny
locations such as Panama, where they can get
more value for their dollar.”
That's not to say life in Panama suits
everyone.
Things in Panama mover really slowly. A
repairman who says he will be right over
might show up days later. Water and
electricity service can be spotty. In Panama
City, drivers treat stop signs as a mild
suggestion.
“It takes a little bit of balls to retire
here,” says Matt Landau, a New Jersey native
who is the founder of Panama City-based
online portal The Panama Report.
“This is not for type As. It's not your
turnkey Florida retirement.”
Still, boomers who have recently relocated
to Panama say they feel as if they have
figured out a successful geographic
arbitrage.
When Stephen Johnson and Linda Murdock were
living in Aromas, Calif., they used to moan
half-jokingly about how they'd have to
retire to Barstow— the armpit of the Mojave
Desert, with summers in excess of 100
degrees and winters that can dip below
freezing.
Over late-night pinot noir on their patio,
they started talking about moving to a
developing nation to stretch their money
further.
They had discovered Panama on a trip there
in 2004 and saw it as a bargain-basement
paradise.
Still, there are tradeoffs in this seemingly
easy life. “Paradise is just a place you
visit,” says Johnson. "If you live here, you
begin to see the cracks.”
Those include the three months it took them
to get their driver's licenses— a process
that involved blood tests, a hearing exam,
and lines that make a US Motor Vehicles
Dept. seem like a fast-food joint.
But Johnson and Murdock have no major
complaints, and Panama is certainly better
than the Mojave. |
