Craigslist Surgery

[rusnak]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

Medical care in the US is a business. It's about money and it's about profits. The quality of care here is generally good but it's only good enough to prevent caregivers from getting sued. It is not necessarily the best in the world.

As opposed to what? Where? And where is medical care better than the U.S.?

Compare apples to apples. The best of the U.S. to the best in ______(insert country here).

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by 1990C4S

For some the choice is no surgery at home or surgery overseas. Some people simply can't afford surgery in North America.

I'm not denying that the medical industry here is money driven... and if you want to get your medical services overseas more power to you.

Just a little funny that most of you guys have multiple cars, motorcycles, boats, airplanes, houses, but you will try save a few bucks on medical.

And after you pay for an airplane ticket to India or Russia and a hotel room how much have you saved?

[ben parrish]

I lived in the Bahamas for a few years. Most of the Bahamians I knew went to Cuba for dental and medical procedures. Excellent care and 1/4 the cost of America. As said before, medical care in America is BIG business. With the money comes innovation but make on mistake, the US does not hold the top spot on medical outcomes..actually, we rank pretty low compared to the rest of the world. Arrogance because we think we are better is just plain silly....there is great care around the world and the cost does not bankrupt families and make corporations billions on pills and procedures.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by 1990C4S

Surgery, of all sorts, in 'third world' countries is very common. And frequently superior to 'more civilized places'.

India does a booming business.

I wouldn't dismiss it as a bad idea before checking the facts.

Millions of people shop at Walmart too.

The problem is, do you know if you're going to get a good Dr or one of the other ones.
Vyapam: India's deadly medical school exam scandal - BBC News
excerpt from the above link

The scale of the scandal boggles the mind. Some 2,530 people have been accused since 2012. Around 1,980 people have been arrested; and 550 people are still sought by police. Twenty courts in Madhya Pradesh are looking into 55 cases registered in connection with the scandal.

By one estimate, some 140,000 men and women have sat exams conducted by Vyapam since 2007. The government says more than 1,000 "illegal appointments" have been made through Vyapam, although whistle-blowers like Dr Rai say the figure is much higher.

Question papers were leaked, answer sheets rigged, impersonators - themselves bright, young students - were hired to sit for candidates, and seats sold to the highest bidder. Anything between 1m rupees ($15,764; £10,168) and 7m rupees was paid for a seat.

Investigators have examined nearly 10,000 photographs of students, many of which were forged by impersonators. They have gleaned electronic information from at least five hard drives, innumerable pen drives and laptops.

That is not all. In a mysterious twist, some 33 people - mostly accused in connection with the scam have died in the past two years - raising suspicions and all kinds of conspiracy theories. Ten of them have died in road accidents, something, which one investigator says, needs further investigation to dispel doubts of foul play.

[gacook]

Originally Posted by porsche4life

Sounds like the people here in AZ that will cross the border to Mexico for dental work on the cheap... I'm sorry, but they can't even guarantee clean water down there, NFW am I letting them work on my mouth.

My ex-wife's mom used to go to Mexico all the time for dental work (she's Mexican, but...). The doc she saw down there had a practice in the US and one in Mexico. After all the regulatory BS (mostly insurance, I believe), his costs up here were more than 3 times what he charged in Mexico. Same doc, same tools, same services...a third of the price. Just sayin'...

[arcsine]

A family I know took a year off to travel, build some business contacts and get medical work done. They needed dental work and found a doctor that had a clean, professional office, she was trained in the US, the work was excellent and costs pennies on the dollar compared to the same work done here.
I see no reason to believe that somehow the care provided was substandard simply because the doctor was practicing in Thailand. Or to put it another way, I have no illusions that a doctor being certified to practice in the US by that criteria alone is a superior physician.
And this is not even addressing the usurious fees and charges that are rampant in the US.

[rusnak]

If you want to lower medical costs in the U.S. then put a cap on medical liability, or raise the standard for personal injury claims, and lay off of the ridiculous over regulation of the industry.

Stop causing hospitals to treat everything from dog bites, to falling off a roof, swallowing a plastic Barbie doll, and STDs for free in the ER.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Agree. And there's precedent for this. Google "General Aviation Revitalization Act of 1994". Basically GA (General Aviation) manufacturing in the United States had been killed due to legal liability (some idiot gets into his airplane drunk and flies it into a school, the manufacturer gets sued simply because they built the airplane and they have a perception of having deep pockets, stuff like that). The GARA instituted liability limits and since then GA manufacturing has come back to life. Airplanes that wouldnt have ever existed like the Cirrus SR-22 got designed and built. It saved the industry.

There's a good lesson here - if you limit liability in a sensible way, business thrives. Jobs get created. Innovation happens. Of course tort lawyers don't like that. They like being able to fling schite at the wall to see what sticks (and if anything does, they get 20%). The problem is most lawmakers are lawyers, writing laws to benefit other lawyers, so it's difficult if not impossible to get a real discussion going in this country about tort reform.

It's doubly complicated when we're talking about medical malpractice and liability. It's easy to talk about tort reform as an abstract concept - most people find it a lot harder to talk about when they're talking about their loved one who might die in hospital. When patients die (and they do sometimes) there's a conditioned reaction to want to blame someone - especially in America. "Someone died! I'm gonna' SUE someone!" So you get what we've got - unnecessary (or marginally necessary) procedures for everything, hours and hours spent documenting and covering one's arse instead of providing care, etc.

The ONLY meaningful recommendation to reduce health care costs in America was conveniently omitted from Obamacare - wonder why? Who wrote it? (Answer - lobbyists, most of whom are current or former lawyers). Who passed it? (Answer - Congress, most of whose members are current or former lawyers). Who signed it? (Answer - Obama, a lawyer by training).

America - 5% of the world's population, 60% of the world's lawyers. There's the answer to a lot of our problems.