The following published in Friday's IHT. Comments anyone?
By Yascha Mounk Published: April 13, 2007
MONTELATERONE, Italy: Tuscany is known as a land of plenty, where beautiful landscapes and picturesque hilltop villages combine with a rich cultural heritage to attract tourists from around the world. But off the tourist track, in its poorer areas, whole towns are becoming depopulated and thousands of acres of agricultural land falling into disuse.
You could write that about most of the small rural places in Italy.
Many, including younger people, want modern housing, services and wider society as well as modern jobs. There are entire villages that had become depopulated that are now either weekend homes or owned by foreigners. Those uses are all that kept them from going to ruin. I pass piles of stones that were occupied as late as the 1950s all the time.
It is also the fact that all these people sent their children to Universities and to major studies, giving them more opportuninties to make for them self a better life but also making them more dependent to travel in order to get the jobs they studied for.
A friend of mine is graduated in to Laser physics. Of course she wouldn't look for a job in the local grocery store, or shared no interests into wood carving. She is a physician and a researcher at the university of Massacchusset.
There is one thing though we should keep in mind. The love and attachment we share for our land. Often when people retire they come back to their hometown. And I see this still happening. All the time. My friend has just bought an house here. She'll come in the summer for the moment, but when she'll retire she already talks of coming back here for good.
That's true. You can tell that of any rural area. Montelaterone is close by, and what they say about the condition there is true for Civitella, my village as well, or other villages nearby, such as beautiful Pari, for instance. It's how things go.
Sometimes I think that we, human beings, are control freaks, we want to maintain the status quo of things they way we know them. But the world changes, villages and cities come and go, and history teaches that. Montelaterone, Civitella, even Venice, will not be different.
Originally posted by Gloria - Casina di Rosa: Sometimes I think that we, human beings, are control freaks, we want to maintain the status quo of things they way we know them. But the world changes, villages and cities come and go, and history teaches that. Montelaterone, Civitella, even Venice, will not be different.
Often when people retire they come back to their hometown. And I see this still happening. All the time.
I'm curious ... if someone like your friend, Alessandra, were to spend her whole working life in the US and then come back to Italy to retire, would she be eligible for a pension from Italy? (Assuming that she kept her Italian citizenship.)
She will get social security and whatever private pension plan she is building. You take a pension from where you paid for it. Nobody gets Medicare abroad.
She will get social security and whatever private pension plan she is building. You take a pension from where you paid for it. Nobody gets Medicare abroad.
So if so how is an Italian citizen able to return from a possible lifetime of working abroad to the hometown for retirement? I take it the private pension is jsut what you are able to save yourself (which if you have to pay taxes on it unlike a 401K is somewhat hard). I don't understand the part about nobody get medicare abroad? If you return and you are an Italian citizen although you don't have work "credit" in Italy, are you still entitled to free health care or whatever the national Italian health care system offers? In the USA "pension" has a different meaning to it than what I think I understand here.
Posts: 3761 | Location: St Paul, MN | Registered: 10 February 2006
I imagine it is a similar system to that which exists in the UK. If you have no money,savings etc and reside in the UK you are entitled to claim a benefit which is not dependant upon any contributions you have made into the system. It is a basic state pension,(when paid to those over pensionable age)arguably just enough to exist on. The NHS also provides free healthcare to anyone who is living here,again regardless of whether they have contributed into the system. A personal pension is of course portable, so if you paid into one in another country you could have the benefits converted into the currency of the country you move to.
Posts: 1222 | Location: UK | Registered: 12 June 2005
Yes, it's a welfare system like UK and Canada. I think minimum pension is 500 euros.
You must be either over 60 or have no other income.
If you are foreigner and you get sick and need a hospital, emergency assistance is free, if you need anything else and you do not have coverage you will be asked to pay.
The NHS also provides free healthcare to anyone who is living here,again regardless of whether they have contributed into the system.
So is it the same in Italy for "repatriates" ie Italian citizens that have lived abroad for years and then return for retirement? No health care worries because the national system will take care of you?
Posts: 3761 | Location: St Paul, MN | Registered: 10 February 2006
Originally posted by dragonpat: No health care worries because the national system will take care of you?
Yep, exactly!!
The pension will be paid by the country she worked in. She'll get her pension from the University of Massacchusset - or from wherever she'll work-, and the health care from the health system in Italy.
Yes, but they have to provide proof that they paid for healthcare in their country before moving back to Italy.
Otherwise they might have to pay a small yearly fee. My inlaws that moved young to Italy after a life spent between England and Canada, before paying enough into the system, pay a yearly fee of 300 euros for the two of them.
Otherwise they might have to pay a small yearly fee. My inlaws that moved young to Italy after a life spent between England and Canada, before paying enough into the system, pay a yearly fee of 300 euros for the two of them
Were they Italian citizens? or does it work this way for all foreigners? 300 euros for a year of health care is nothing compared to what we pay in the US. If you didn't have to work (ie retired),and could get permission to move there, this sounds like a great deal.
Posts: 3761 | Location: St Paul, MN | Registered: 10 February 2006
Originally posted by Gloria - Casina di Rosa: Yes, but they have to provide proof that they paid for healthcare in their country before moving back to Italy.
Otherwise they might have to pay a small yearly fee. My inlaws that moved young to Italy after a life spent between England and Canada, before paying enough into the system, pay a yearly fee of 300 euros for the two of them.
My friend is Italian Citizen, she doesn't have to pay nothing.
Originally posted by Gloria - Casina di Rosa: They are British-Canadian citizens.
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Having lived and (presumably worked) in the UK they will have paid into the NHS,therefore as Italy and the UK are in the EU,it is quite fair that they receive free healthcare. In my opinion that would not be true of someone who moved from a country outside the EU.
Posts: 1222 | Location: UK | Registered: 12 June 2005
My in-laws did not pay into the system in the UK, this is why they have to pay the small yearly fee.
I know several Americans who are in the country and who have had free health assistance at the emergency room but not a cast, for instance, for which they had to pay.
Lots of immigrants though, from outside the EU, get the so-called social pension and they have free health insurance because they are under the minimum income level.
I went and read a couple of websites. I was curious!
So, basic health assistance is free for all residents, (and illegal immigrants get it too).
Tourists have to pay.
People from the EU or from outside the EU but from countries which have signed an agreement with Italy have basic health insurance and everything which exceeds it (don't ask) is paid by their country of residency.
This is what I understand. In the end it is true that we pay a lot to support the system and not just our own assistence. But in England and Canada it's the same I think.
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