Maybe you want to, but based on the numerous calls I get daily from India offering fake credit card rate reductions, fake free ocean cruises, fake auto warranties, fake charities, fake back braces, fake IRS agents, and fake Microsoft technicians, I don’t think I relish fake medical care from India.
Sure medical tourism is a possibility if you’ve got a whole lot of money. I considered going to Canada several years ago for an eye procedure US insurance companies wouldn’t cover. (They do now.) Aside from the fact that I couldn’t come close to affording the travel, hotel stays, and surgical costs on a teacher’s salary (and with a kid in college), the big drawback was that I’d have had to head back there for all follow-up care. US docs, I was told by two of them, are loathe to do follow-up care on surgeries done elsewhere, even Canada.
And when I queried my insurance, they said nope, they wouldn’t cover follow-up care for surgeries done out of the US.
I can’t speak about India, but the best hospitals in Bangkok are excellent. They serve affluent patients from throughout Asia; the doctors are foreign-trained and speak excellent English. Prices have gone up but are still much less than in U.S. (In a previous thread I misremembered the cost of CT brain scan, but even at $90 it’s much cheaper than in U.S.)
I actually have that benefit through work; if I need certain types of elective surgery I have the option of fully paid trip overseas (& I can bring a companion).
I ran into this when I considered going overseas for bsriatric surgery. Insurance said they wouldn’t cover follow up or complications due to the surgery.
I just read an article on a Mexican health care site that suggested ways to increase Mexico’s already multi-billion dollar medical tourism industry. They included adding spas and other attractions for family members of patients.
Where it gets increasingly dicey is when clinics promote cures under highly dubious circumstances. It’s bad enough when people get sucked into donating money online to “help” patients using these facilities, but do we want our health insurance (or eventually, government-sponsored care) funding such trips with little to no oversight?
Yeah but about 2 million Americans get an infection from hospitals each year (i’m not sure what % are drug resistant infections). So that is a risk from people who get treated domestically too.
Also several therapies promoted in the US don’t work any better than placebo, but htey still get promoted.
Health care systems all over have problems. But the US is not a paradigm of unmitigated success in pretty much any area as far as I can tell.
Since my reference was to sleazy foreign cancer clinics, I’d be interested to hear what counterparts you think exist in America.
Oh right, there’s the Burzynski money mill down in Houston. But at least medical and other authorities have tried to crack down on them and warn against going there. I’ve seen no indication that (for example) Mexican officials try seriously to shut down their cancer quacks.