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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.

#21

Post by sdoering »

pravda wrote: post #14

It's not greed, it's a consequence of health insurance. Get rid of health insurance and prices would drop 10x.

Would they? Or would the poor middle class people not being able to afford cancer-treatment/heard surgery just have a considerably lower life-expectancy?

I am not sure, so I really would love to see the numbers/facts supporting your statement. Would love to learn of this magic fact. [cynicism end]

[Edit]: Typo

[Edit 2:] In Germany, with full health-insurance the cost for a Cardiopulmonary bypass are round about 30k €. So a lot cheaper, than in the US, despite health insurance.

Just wanted to present a fact, not let my comment stand as cynicism only.

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

#22

Post by seanmcdirmid »

venomsnake wrote: post #7
ctrl_freak wrote: post #2

You would think more Americans would fly to India to get expensive medical procedures done. Or are there other issues that need to be overcome to do this?

A few things: 1. People don't know about it. 2. Are the outcomes comparable? 3. Legal protection - you will have hard time suing Indian specialist in India and there won't be much damages to extract anyway. 4. Age? A good chunk of people that need that types of surgeries are well covered by Medicare. 5. You also need plane tickets, recovery time and at least one companion - so you may look at a lot higher total cost.…

Besides, Cuba is closer. Canada is also a bargain compared to the US and you don't even have to violate state department rules.

However, ironically enough, the USA has a booming medical tourism industry also. At about 60-80k, it is only half as small as India (150,000), though nowhere near Thailand (1.42 million).

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

#23

Post by arjie »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #13
DigitalSea wrote: post #9

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…

For what it's worth, there's a huge range of private care in India. From expensive hospitals that cater primarily to the upper class to charlatans without a degree holed away in a slum.

The difference between these two ends is incredible. While I can imagine these results at the latter, I find them hard to believe at the former. I'm paywalled away from this for the next two weeks, so if you want the facts, that's where I'd look: what sort of private healthcare.

Edit: To illustrate, another commenter has a link to an news story that says mortality is lower after the Indian procedure - http://m.theaustralian.com.au/archive/business-old/the-henry...

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

#24

Post by kapad »

Medical tourism has hurt most Indians. 1583 USD is almost 100k INR. The average per capita income in India is 1219 USD (72k INR). This figure too is very misleading, since poverty is a huge problem.

A very simple plotting with data from wikipedia and rudimentary extrapolation, shows that more than 1.1 billion Indian's annual income is less than the current cost of heart surgery. India's total population is 1.2 billion.

Medical tourism, though very fine for a lot of folks who want a cheaper alternative, is driving up the cost of medical treatments in India by leaps and bounds. This makes surgeries, that were already very expensive and out of the reach of most Indian's even more expensive and out of the reach of even more people.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_India Simpel graph of the poverty data : http://imgur.com/JngiK8W (I used this to find the number of people with an annual income less than 1583 USD)

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

#26

Post by anonymoushn »

pliny wrote: post #12
bobdvb wrote: 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?

There are some people doing this, like this surgery center in Oklahoma http://kfor.com/2013/07/08/okc-hospital-posting-surgery-pric...

For most of the market, price competition does not occur because providers will not disclose the price of a service before selling it.

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

#27

Post by crntaylor »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #13
DigitalSea wrote: post #9

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…

That article doesn't actually compare India to the US. In fact, it says that "It’s also likely the results aren’t India-specific." It would be interesting to see the results of a similar study carried out in the US or UK, for example.

In any case, there is a difference between the general level of competency of doctors in a given country, and the level of competency available to wealthy foreigners travelling to the country for medical tourism.

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

#28

Post by bayesianhorse »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #13
DigitalSea wrote: post #9

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…

I read about this clinic somewhere else, and there it was said this clinic actually outperforms western clinics in terms of complications, which seems to be achieved through staggering case numbers per doctor.

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

#29

Post by IbJacked »

pliny wrote: post #12
bobdvb wrote: 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?

That's how it should work. Unfortunately, the U.S. healthcare system isn't really a free market. There are many laws and regulations (and insurance company imposed rules) that prevent healthy competition in the marketplace.

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

#30

Post by dantheman »

danboarder wrote: post #15
DigitalSea wrote: post #9

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…

A huge problem in the US is all sorts of really really bad laws. For instance to open a new hospital you have to get permission from other hospitals in the area.
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