Millions Of Americans Travel Abroad For Health Care

Remember when we were the gold standard? Now, there's an entire niche industry springing up to help Americans get good health care they can afford.

From CNN:

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 [US 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.... 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."

How do they do it? With wacky ideas like these one: "Max neurosurgeon Dr. Ajaya Jha said the hospital can provide high-quality care at low prices because the staff work hard to cut waste. 

"I've seen hospitals in the US where they open up something costing $10,000 and say, 'Oh it's not working. OK, give me another one.' We would never do that here. Even for 100 rupees (about $2) -- we would say, "Do we need to open this suture? Do we need to open this gauze?' We are very conscious of cost."

The salary of a US surgeon is five times that of a surgeon in India. "We [surgeons in India] want to make a profit, but we don't want to profiteer. We don't want squeeze people and I think American industries should also think that way," Jha said.

Profit, not profiteering. What a concept.

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