Posted on 07/06/2007 7:57:19 PM PDT by libertarianPA
She also doesn't report on the thousands of foreigners who come here for immediate medical care every year because they're tired of waiting on lists in their own countries.
Surgical supplies and drugs provided by China, LOL.
I’d certainly consider retaining some 26 year old “brilliant neurosurgeon” working for England’s National Health Service.
The cost for the travel abroad is a drop in the bucket compared to the savings encountered for the operation.
This is no BS. Sixty Minutes featured this last year.
Quality healthcare costs money. Geta job with benefits and pay for it. Or bitch about it and trust some mexican quack to do surgery on you.
This whole "healthcare crisis" is becoming tiresome and is almost reaching to crescendo of Global Warming..
Going to a hospital located in a Second or Third World country is crazy.....*crazy* I tell you.
>>>If the author actually believes any of the BS she wrote...
Going off shore for medical procedures is indeed a growth market, particularly for expensive testing.
But there are some cautions: doctors in Asia are not used to the larger and less sensitive Caucasian body type. Getting an Asian to pull out deeply rooted white-man or black-man’s teeth could be a problem. And, thus there might also be problems on judging the amounts of anaesthetics. Lower ethics overseas is often offset by out-of-control profit motives of doctors or drowning paperwork and other government regulations here in the U.S. (not reimbursing tests, and this shuts out searching for causes, for example).
Lots of people from Californistan travel (or used to) to Mexico for alternative dentistry. Britons now regularly travel to India for emergency heart operations, rather than wait around and die waiting in London.
The best deal on health travel, to my mind, focuses on reducing the cost of annual testing, and the cost of recovery (high labor). The operations are more safely done in the U.S.
The quality of nursing care (as opposed to medical doctors) may be much higher overseas. For example, many U.S. nurses can’t find the magic spot to take blood samples. Those overseas poke around much less.
1. Not everyone can luck out and get a job with benefits. When you get older, the cost of health insurance skyrockets. Numerous people cannot take early retirement because health insurance for a married couple in their early sixties costs as much as 18K annually. If you have a condition, you can’t even get insurance.
2. There are a handful of foreign hospitals which meet American standards and have JCI accredition.
Check out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paNRv-—Adw
Recently had some teeth work done in Mexico at very reasonable cost, very clean and professional, highly recommend.
No doubt you have researched them all including Bumrungrad in Bangkok with it's many US board certified specialists.
That one impressed me so much, I bought stock in it.
While I will not disagree with the numbers quoted in your referenced video, you must remember that it only focuses on the free ride the young and irresponsible is getting. It does not say one thing about the old and responsible. It did not say a word about how much health insurance costs them.
Regarding the second video, I agree that socialized medicine, as practiced elsewhere, is not the answer. As I see it, the only way around our high costs is a Bumrungrad type solution.
Hey the insurance companies and doctors are telling us how great the free market is in healthcare. Here is people looking at costs and options and deciding for themselves and paying completely on their own.
Btw my idea for the auto companies retiree healthcare costs was to do all the major procedures outside of the US. A lot of retired workers I think would actually be happy to get a paid for vacation to Thailand or India. Thailand is a long journey, but it looks like they have lots of well trained people.
Some insurance companies are beginning to offer totally free operations (no deductables or copays) if you go out of the country for the operation.
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