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Heart Surgery in India for $1,583 Costs $106,385 in U.S.

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Re: Heart Surgery in India for $1,583 Costs $106,385 in U.S.

#11

What is the survival rate in India after that procedure, comparing to the US? My colleague _visited_ India and returned with a stomach flu, spent a week in a hospital.

The reason for your colleague's stomach flu might be because of some unsafe food. Most hospitals and clinics are infact quite clean and well maintained.

Re: Heart Surgery in India for $1,583 Costs $106,385 in U.S.

#12
post #8

I found it fascinating how this goes way beyond wage differences -- it's a serious focus on fiscal efficiency. The entrepreneur behind this has opened 21 new hospitals in India focused on bringing more affordable care: "...he has cut the price of artery-clearing coronary bypass surgery to 95,000 rupees ($1,583), half of what it was 20 years ago, and wants to get the price down to $800 within a decade." This leaves me…

What incentive is there in the USA to reduce healthcare costs? The system is totally corrupt.

I don't know much about the American healthcare system, but wouldn't it be the same incentive when selling any product? If you sell the same quality product for cheaper, you will get more business than your competitors.

That's what competition in a free market is, no?

Re: Heart Surgery in India for $1,583 Costs $106,385 in U.S.

#13

The first supposed fact thrown around in the medical costs argument like this is, "Well in India their cost of living is lower, so they charge considerably less, yadda yadda..." but it's obvious the price difference goes way beyond any cost of living gap. That's over $100,000 in price difference, while it is true the cost of living (salary, prices of every day items) in India is considerably less than that of the US,…

> A doctor trained in India is no less qualified than a doctor trained in the US.

In general?

http://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/shocking-facts-ab...

> It’s also pretty staggering that hiring qualified staff doesn’t appear to increase this probability. Das and colleagues suggest that part of the issue might be the variation in the quality of instruction in Indian medical training institutions. So there may be some institutions from which a qualification does make a difference. But given the paper’s results, the effect of such institutions must be rather small. The fact that providers working in better equipped facilities don’t have a higher probability of prescribing the right treatment is also alarming.

Obviously, heart surgery isn't rocket science, and our medical training is a bit overpriced, but is it so easy to compare two disjoint systems?

Re: Heart Surgery in India for $1,583 Costs $106,385 in U.S.

#15

The first supposed fact thrown around in the medical costs argument like this is, "Well in India their cost of living is lower, so they charge considerably less, yadda yadda..." but it's obvious the price difference goes way beyond any cost of living gap. That's over $100,000 in price difference, while it is true the cost of living (salary, prices of every day items) in India is considerably less than that of the US,…

At face value this appears to be a huge opportunity for innovators to take on the whole existing healthcare industry here in the USA.

In reality I think many healthcare entrepreneurs either get caught in the existing framework (and dependent on it), or find the regulatory and other hurdles too hard here.

That said, I still think there is a LOT of room to improve cost efficiency here, and the right entrepreneur could do it. It's been done in other stagnant segments of the economy... I would like to see an Elon Musk-type entrepreneur open efficient hospitals here like this guy is doing in India.

Re: Heart Surgery in India for $1,583 Costs $106,385 in U.S.

#16
post #12
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What incentive is there in the USA to reduce healthcare costs? The system is totally corrupt.

I don't know much about the American healthcare system, but wouldn't it be the same incentive when selling any product? If you sell the same quality product for cheaper, you will get more business than your competitors. That's what competition in a free market is, no?

The high barriers to entry in the field make it conducive to collusion. I'm not saying there is collusion, just saying that given that the supply isn't going away and that new upstarts cannot disrupt the market, you may make more money by not competing on price.

Re: Heart Surgery in India for $1,583 Costs $106,385 in U.S.

#17

What is the survival rate in India after that procedure, comparing to the US? My colleague _visited_ India and returned with a stomach flu, spent a week in a hospital.

30 day mortality rate is 1.4% vs. 1.9% in the US in 2008 [1]. The claim is that due to the high volume and single service, the surgeons get an awful lot of practice at the procedure and become very good at it.

[1] http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/business-old/the-hen...

Re: Heart Surgery in India for $1,583 Costs $106,385 in U.S.

#18

What is the survival rate in India after that procedure, comparing to the US? My colleague _visited_ India and returned with a stomach flu, spent a week in a hospital.

So because your friend ate some bad food, that country's hospitals must be unhygenic? Yup, I totally see the correlation there.

I'm Australian, visited the US and got severe Salmonella poisoning in Vegas... the US must have really shocking road safety laws.

Re: Heart Surgery in India for $1,583 Costs $106,385 in U.S.

#19
This is classic disruption at work. There are many procedures e.g. cataract surgery costs have come down but they are such cash cows that the prices were held high. India is doing this because skills can scale if there is a system of training. It wasn't too long ago when I read the Russians invented a factory-line method of doing eye-surgery.

Re: Heart Surgery in India for $1,583 Costs $106,385 in U.S.

#20
The situation in other Asian countries like India, Taiwan, or South Korea is nearly the same. There are still some obstables. A different environment and unknown results may be the major ones. People should try to calculate the overall outcome and costs and maybe come up with some good international insurance packages.
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