Americans going overseas for medical care

[Chris]

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- "I was a walking time bomb. I knew I had to get on that plane if I wanted to be around to see my grandkids."

Sandra Giustina is a 61-year-old uninsured American. For three years she saved her money in hopes of affording heart surgery to correct her atrial fibrillation. "They [U.S. hospitals] told me it would be about $175,000, and there was just no way could I come up with that," Giustina said.

So, with a little digging online, she found several high quality hospitals vying for her business, at a fraction of the U.S. cost. Within a month, she was on a plane from her home in Las Vegas, Nevada, to New Delhi, India. Surgeons at Max Hospital fixed her heart for "under $10,000 total, including travel."

Lower costs lure U.S. patients abroad for treatment - CNN.com

 

[elvis]

more Marxist bullshit.

 

[xotoxi]

You don't need fucking surgery to correct atrial fibrillation!

Give me a break!

 

[xsited1]

This is actually an excellent idea. From the link:

While most tourism patients from America are uninsured, major U.S. insurance companies are considering providing "medical tourism" coverage to their customers. Several have already launched pilot programs.

"I think what's really important about medical tourism is that you make the choice for what's right for you and what's important to them," said a spokesman for U.S. health insurer WellPoint Inc.

We live in a global economy and we might as well embrace it. Sure, there will be more outsourcing of American jobs, but in the end we will become more competitive and the services will be better for all.

 

[elvis]

You don't need fucking surgery to correct atrial fibrillation!

Give me a break!

does one need a lobotomy to cure stupidity? chris wants to know.

 

[xotoxi]

While most tourism patients from America are uninsured, major U.S. insurance companies are considering providing "medical tourism" coverage to their customers. Several have already launched pilot programs.

"I think what's really important about medical tourism is that you make the choice for what's right for you and what's important to them," said a spokesman for U.S. health insurer WellPoint Inc.

So these insurance companies will not pay for procedured done by board certified, American trained physicians in state of the art hospitals...but they will pay for some unlicensed doctor to perform surgery in a fly infested hospital in downtown Calcutta?

Its a great way for the insurance company CEOs to save themselves some money, at the expense of the patient's health.

 

[xotoxi]

You don't need fucking surgery to correct atrial fibrillation!

Give me a break!

does one need a lobotomy to cure stupidity? chris wants to know.

Stupidity is learned.

 

[Indiana Oracle]

Wow. What a load of misleading nonsense.

Among the many far away places I have spent time in is India. Have been there many times and know New Delhi. It is a country populated with wonderful people, wonderful food, and other delights. It is also highly populated and a generally unsanitary place with the exception of various islands of wealth.

A dollar can go a long way in India even in wealthy areas where one might find good healthcare facilities and skilled heart surgeons. But healthcare in India is not at all what is available in the US when comparing whole country to whole country. Realize that folks of Indian heritage may disagree, but that was my experience during the early 2000's.

That said, as good as our healthcare is, it is expensive. There are lots of reasons for this of course. Nationalizing the system will not get at root causes in my view. The CNN article sounds a lot like a national healthcare agenda hit piece which is meant, as is the habit of the media, to mislead the public.

 

[elvis]

Wow. What a load of misleading nonsense.

Among the many far away places I have spent time in is India. Have been there many times and know New Delhi. It is a place populated with wonderful people, wonderful food, and other delights. It is also highly populated and a generally unsanitary place with the exception of various islands of wealth.

A dollar can go a long way in India even in wealthy areas where one might find good healthcare facilities and skilled physicians. But healthcare in India is not at all what is available in the US when comparing whole country to whole country. Realize that folks of Indian heritage here may disagree, but that is my experience during the early 2000's.

That said, as good as our healthcare is, it is expensive. There are lots of reasons for this of course. Nationalizing the system will not get at root causes in my view.

welcome to chrissy's marxist world.

 

[xsited1]

While most tourism patients from America are uninsured, major U.S. insurance companies are considering providing "medical tourism" coverage to their customers. Several have already launched pilot programs.

"I think what's really important about medical tourism is that you make the choice for what's right for you and what's important to them," said a spokesman for U.S. health insurer WellPoint Inc.

So these insurance companies will not pay for procedured done by board certified, American trained physicians in state of the art hospitals...but they will pay for some unlicensed doctor to perform surgery in a fly infested hospital in downtown Calcutta?

Its a great way for the insurance company CEOs to save themselves some money, at the expense of the patient's health.

That's the way it works. Companies cut costs to remain competitive. Corporate taxes are high, countless lawsuits increase insurance costs to ridiculous amounts, state-of-the art equipments costs lots of money, Americans demand the best medical care. It can't be sustained in the US. However, if our own government nationalizes healthcare, all bets are off.

 

[editec]

Indiana Oracle opines

Nationalizing the system will not get at root causes in my view.

I'm included to agree, ESPECIALLY if we nationalize the payments system without nationalizing the health care providers.

The root sources of the problem are aging demographics, more complex and expensive procedures, increasing wages compared to other occupations and industries and bureacratic costs and waste currently associated with private insurance schemes.

The more successfully medicine keeps people alive, the higher the costs become.

Older patients demand more expensive care partially because they've lived long enough to need it.


Sooner or later we have to acknowledge there might is a monetary limit to how long we'll pay to keep people alive.

Doesn't matter what system we have, HC rationing is inevitable.

Either the market rations (and it already is, really...that's why 50,000,000 American don't have health care), or the government does if it completely takes over.

But, either way, we're in a self defeating cycle of having to ration because HC is getting better at keeping us alive long enough to need replacement parts!.

That's ironic, eh?

 

[Chris]

more Marxist bullshit.

This story is capitalism at its finest.

The same product is cheaper overseas, so people go overseas.

This is also the reason seniors in Arizona take bus trips to Mexico to buy their drugs.

 

[Chris]

Conveyor-belt cardiology puts profits first - Second Opinion- msnbc.com

Let me be clear, the vast majority of interventional cardiologists — the doctors who perform angioplasties — are honest and caring physicians. But I remember standing in scrubs outside a procedure room in Miami when the other doctors (who mistook me for a colleague) were bragging about how many “normals” they had done angioplasties on. That’s right, people came in complaining of shortness of breath or chest pain, so the doctors put them into the cauterization lab and examined their vessels, then told these patients they needed an angioplasty and did it knowing full well it was unnecessary.

For many doctors and hospitals, angioplasty has been the mother lode. I’ve had young interventional cardiologists brag to me of their multi-million dollar signing bonuses to change hospitals.

 

[elvis]

more Marxist bullshit.

This story is capitalism at its finest.

The same product is cheaper overseas, so people go overseas.

This is also the reason seniors in Arizona take bus trips to Mexico to buy their drugs.

you posted it because you don't believe in capitalism, but rather communism.

 

[garyd]

Nope stupidity is the inability to learn. Fits to a greater or lesser degree every leftist I've ever known.

 

[Toro]

They did a piece on this on 60 Minutes five or so years ago. They toured through the hospitals and met the doctors. You could have been in Oregon or Virginia, the places were so sanitized. And the doctors were, according to the program, highly-trained and very competent.

 

[garyd]

Competition is a good thing.

 

[Yukon]

Your YUKON man lives 60 miles from the Canada US border in Ontario. A good friend of mine, who works in the local hospital, was telling me about the influx of Americans who want Stress Testing and Mamograms. The hospital can charge Americans whatever fee they feel fit but are limited on how much they can charge us Canadians.

Recently the Ontario government ordered the hospital to only perform these tests on "foreigners" if no Ontario resident was kept waiting.

American costs have become so expensive that your people are dying because they cannot afford health care insurance. So much for the land of the brave, the home of the free, and the home of free enterprise. Wake up my American friends, give your heads a shake, smell the coffee and DEMAND MEDICARE for all.

Long Live CANADA, VIVE le YUKON !

Praise be to the Pope !

 

[garyd]

On the other hand Canadians who don't wish to wait months or even years for certain elective surgeries are flocking to the US. You win some you lose some.

 

[editec]

On the other hand Canadians who don't wish to wait months or even years for certain elective surgeries are flocking to the US. You win some you lose some.

I'd love to see the statistical evidence you have to support that claim.

I happen to live near the Eastern Maine Medical center, which is one of the largest and closest health care facilities to millions of Canadians.

To date there is no influx of Canadians visiting that place.

There ARE, however, plenty of Mainers who visit Canada to buy their drugs, get medical and dental treatments they cannot afford in America, too.

Odd that the facts are 180 degrees different that you have been informed of, isn't it, Gary D?

Perhaps, you ought to consider the possibly that you are being lied to.

Perhaps you ought to do some research to discover for yourself that you are being lied to, too.

Go ahead, amigo, try thinking for yourself and stop depending on radio hate jocks for your disinformation.

I dare ya'!