There is a version of retirement abroad people like to imagine.

You sell the house.

You simplify your life.

You move somewhere with better weather, lower costs, maybe a view that doesn’t come with a homeowners association and a mild emotional collapse.

Your pension shows up.

Your healthcare somehow works itself out.

Everybody wins.

And then the paperwork arrives.

Because here’s what almost nobody warns retirees about before they move abroad: your income benefits and your health benefits do not travel the same way.

Your pension may follow you.

Your healthcare often absolutely does not.

And that difference is where people get hurt.

If you’re an American, Social Security is generally the easy part. Medicare is the trap.

If you’re a Canadian, CPP is usually the easy part. Provincial healthcare is the trap. OAS can be a trap too if you don’t meet the residency rules.

So let’s do this the useful way.

Not fear.

Not fantasy.

Just the actual map of what follows you, what doesn’t, and what can quietly go wrong if you move first and figure it out later.

If you’re a U.S. citizen receiving Social Security retirement benefits, you can generally keep receiving them while living outside the United States, including in Colombia. SSA’s own international payments guidance is very clear that U.S. citizens can usually keep getting benefits abroad as long as they remain eligible. There are country-specific restrictions for a short list of places, including Cuba and North Korea, and SSA also lists several countries where payments are generally restricted unless an exception applies, such as Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Colombia is not on that problem list.

That’s the part people like.

Here’s the part they miss: SSA does not just say, “Great, enjoy Bogotá, see you never.”

For beneficiaries living outside the United States, SSA uses its Foreign Enforcement Program, which includes questionnaires such as Form SSA-7162 to confirm that you are still alive, still eligible, and still the correct person receiving the money. SSA’s own POMS guidance says these forms are used in the program, and the agency’s inspector general has explained that the foreign questionnaires are sent annually or biennially depending on the beneficiary profile. Ignore the form long enough, and you are inviting a benefits interruption you will not enjoy fixing from another continent.

So yes, your Social Security can follow you.

No, that does not mean you should disappear administratively.

This is one of those details people skip until it becomes important.

SSA says that, generally, noncitizens cannot receive Retirement, Survivors, and Disability Insurance benefits after the sixth calendar month outside the United States unless they qualify for an exception. That matters for mixed-nationality couples and especially for anyone assuming future spousal or survivor benefits will just work automatically abroad forever. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t. The exception rules matter.

That is not a “we’ll figure it out someday” detail.

That is a before-you-move detail.

Here is the blunt version.

Original Medicare generally does not cover medical care outside the United States. Medicare’s own comparison pages and travel-outside-the-U.S. guidance say exactly that, while noting only narrow exceptions.

So if you move to Colombia and think, “Well, I paid into Medicare my whole life, so I’m probably fine,” the answer is: not in the way you think.

Medicare is mostly staying home.

And that creates the decision retirees hate most: what do you keep, what do you drop, and what are the long-term consequences of getting that wrong?

For most people, Medicare Part A is premium-free because they or a spouse paid enough Medicare taxes while working. CMS explains that premium-free Part A is based on the worker’s record and quarters of coverage.

That matters because a lot of retirees have the same instinct: if Medicare does almost nothing for me in Colombia, I should just cancel it.

That instinct gets dangerous fast.

Medicare says you generally can only drop Part A if you pay a premium for it. CMS goes even further in its 2026 employer/union Medicare guidance: if someone has premium-free Part A based on Social Security or Railroad Retirement, they generally cannot decline it unless they withdraw their original application and pay back all Social Security cash benefits received. SSA also explains that canceling or withdrawing a benefits application can require repayment of benefits already paid, withheld Medicare premiums, and even Medicare-covered Part A expenses during the period.

So for most retirees, Part A is not where the decision lives.

The practical answer is usually simple: if it’s premium-free, you leave it alone.

Part B is different because it has a monthly premium, and unlike Part A, Medicare explicitly says Part B is voluntary. SSA’s Medicare publication says that plainly.

That means retirees living abroad often ask the obvious question:

Why am I paying for something I can’t really use in Colombia?

That is a fair question.

But Part B has a nasty feature: if you drop it and later want it back, you may face a permanent late-enrollment penalty. Medicare’s own penalty page says the penalty is generally 10% for each full 12-month period you could have had Part B and didn’t, added to your premium. In 2026, Medicare gives an example showing how the standard premium of $202.90 can permanently rise if you delayed enrollment.

So the Part B question is not really, “Does it help me in Colombia?”

It mostly doesn’t.

The real question is:

Do I want to preserve the option of using Medicare in the United States later?

This is where things get more strategic.

If you keep Part B active, and especially if you remain in Original Medicare rather than relying on a local-network Medicare Advantage plan, you can return to the U.S. and use your Medicare there. Medicare does not require you to be U.S.-resident in the moment of treatment in the way many retirees casually imagine. It matters where you are receiving care, not whether you have been living in Bogotá for the past two years.

That means for Americans, keeping Part B can function as a kind of “door open” strategy.

Not coverage in Colombia.

Coverage back home if you need it.

That is the strongest practical argument for continuing to pay Part B while living abroad.

The caveat is obvious but important: this only works if you never let it lapse. You cannot get a scary diagnosis in Colombia, decide Medicare suddenly matters again, and expect the system to welcome you back instantly with no penalty, no delay, and no enrollment problem. The decision has to be made before the emergency, not during it.

A lot of retirees assume one of these plans solves the entire international problem.

They do not.

Medicare says some Medigap policies cover emergency care outside the U.S., but the coverage is narrow: 80% of billed charges for certain medically necessary emergency care outside the U.S., after a $250 deductible, with a $50,000 lifetime limit, and only if the emergency begins during the first 60 days of your trip. That is useful for travel. It is not the same as having normal resident coverage abroad.

Medicare Advantage is also not the magic answer. Medicare’s own comparison page says these plans generally don’t cover medical care outside the U.S., though some plans may offer emergency or urgently needed services abroad as an extra benefit. Again: emergency, urgent, trip-based. Not regular life in Colombia.

So if you live in Colombia, you still need actual coverage in Colombia.

Now let’s switch passports.

For Canadians, CPP is the easy part. Government of Canada guidance on living outside Canada explains that Canada has international social security agreements and that CPP can be paid while abroad. In practical terms, CPP behaves much more like U.S. Social Security than like provincial health insurance.

But OAS is where people can get surprised.

Canada’s official OAS pages say you can receive OAS while living abroad if you lived in Canada for at least 20 years after turning 18, or if a qualifying social security agreement lets you combine periods to meet that threshold. Canada repeats the same 20-year condition across multiple OAS pages.

That means if you moved to Canada later in life, built your retirement plan around OAS, and then left without checking whether you actually met the portability rule, you may discover too late that the pension doesn’t follow you indefinitely the way you assumed.

That is not a small detail.

That is a planning detail.

This is where the “we’ll just fly home if something serious happens” plan tends to collapse.

Unlike Medicare, Canadian health coverage is provincial. Residency rules matter. Absence limits matter. And if you stop meeting them, your provincial coverage can lapse.

Ontario’s official OHIP page says that if you plan to be outside Canada for more than seven months in any 12-month period, you need to qualify under specific absence rules to keep coverage, and those rules require Ontario to remain your primary home plus other conditions.

Québec is even more explicit. RAMQ says that to remain eligible, Québec residents must not be absent 183 days or more per calendar year unless an exception applies. If you move outside Québec, RAMQ says your coverage ends. And if you later return from another country and register again, RAMQ says coverage usually begins after a waiting period of up to three months, even for Canadian citizens.

British Columbia is similarly direct. BC says that if you move outside Canada, MSP coverage continues only for the rest of the month in which you leave. And for new or returning residents, BC’s wait-period guidance says the waiting period is the balance of the month residency is established plus two additional months before benefits can begin.

That is the trap.

A retired Canadian couple can absolutely assume they have a “fly home if needed” backup plan.

Then one of them gets sick.

They fly back.

And the province effectively says: welcome home, now wait.

That is not a good day.

This is the part that matters most.

If you live in Colombia, build your health plan around where you live, not around nostalgia for your old system.

For Americans, that often means:

keep Social Security organized,

decide carefully about Part B,

leave Part A alone if it is premium-free,

and do not pretend Medicare is your Colombia health plan.

For Canadians, it means:

understand CPP and OAS portability before you go,

do not assume your provincial coverage is waiting patiently at home forever,

and definitely do not build your whole backup strategy around flying back during a crisis without checking the re-entry rules of your province.

For both groups, the real answer is the same:

Get coverage in Colombia.

That can mean local Colombian coverage if you qualify, private prepaid coverage, or an international expat policy layered on top depending on your age, visa status, and health needs. The structure will differ, but the principle does not.

You need a real plan where you actually live.

Not just a hopeful theory involving an airport.

Your pension usually travels better than your healthcare.

That’s the sentence.

Social Security? Usually yes.

CPP? Usually yes.

Medicare? Mostly no, except as a preserved option back in the U.S.

Provincial Canadian health plans? Very conditional, and sometimes much less portable than people assume.

OAS? Only if you actually satisfy the residence rules.

And every one of those issues is easier to solve before you move than after you get sick.

That is the real lesson here.

The money part of retirement abroad is often simpler than people expect.

The health coverage part is where the adults need to sit down with a notebook.