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My adventures in medical tourism

chrisstucchio.com

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Re: My adventures in medical tourism

#191

Post by arethuza »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #140
laurencerowe wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US spends almost exactly the same proportion of GDP on public healthcare as the UK (~7.3%) but because the system is so horribly wasteful it gets much less for its money. (Much of healthcare spending is on the old who are covered by public Medicare because private insurance would be unaffordable.) UK: 8.8% of GDP total spending, of which 83.3% public = 7.33%. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/psa/expenditure-on-healt…

India: 4%. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS

Not sure what that is supposed to demonstrate - it's hardly comparing like with like to compare the UK with the "free at the point of delivery" NHS available to everyone with a system where:

"This has led many households to incur Catastrophic Health Expenditure (CHE) which can be defined as health expenditure that threats a household's capacity to maintain a basic standard of living.[2] As per a study, over 35% of poor Indian households incur CHE which reflects the detrimental state in which Indian health care system is at the moment"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_India

In fact, if anything, that perhaps reminds me of the pre-NHS UK healthcare system - which Aneurin Bevan, the founder of the NHS, clearly referenced in the title of his book "In Place of Fear".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneurin_Bevan

Also interesting to note that, according to that first Wikipedia article, India appears to be considering a universal health care system.

Re: My adventures in medical tourism

#192

Post by BryantD »

FraaJad wrote: post #181
BryantD wrote: post #152

I'd recommend doing some more reading on the health care system in India. I believe that it worked really well for the poster; my initial research seems to indicate that there's a huge difference between the health care you can get in urban areas of India and the health care you can get if you're poor and rural. It's easy to build a health care system that works for people with money. The infant mortality rate in Ind…

yeah, yeah, yeah... when someone visit the US for tourism, they don't go to Alabama and Mississippi. They go to the big apple, las vegas and disney world. When you are applying "Free market principles", you go to the place that maximizes your enjoyment/treatment per $$ spent.

Sure. My point is that the forces which optimize for medical tourism do not optimize for overall health care standards. You can certainly prioritize between those two things yourself.

Re: My adventures in medical tourism

#193

Post by BryantD »

train_robber wrote: post #185
BryantD wrote: post #152

I'd recommend doing some more reading on the health care system in India. I believe that it worked really well for the poster; my initial research seems to indicate that there's a huge difference between the health care you can get in urban areas of India and the health care you can get if you're poor and rural. It's easy to build a health care system that works for people with money. The infant mortality rate in Ind…

My home state of Kerala has one of the best health care systems in India. Infant mortality in Kerala is 6.7 (6.2 in US), life expectancy at birth is 76 (78.7 in US). Per-capita income in Kerala is $2,271 ($53,000 in US) So yes, you can provide good healthcare even with not a lot of money floating around. References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala_model

That's great reading and I appreciate it! From the Wikipedia article, it sounds like the Kerala government is very involved in health care. Am I reading that right?

Re: My adventures in medical tourism

#194

Post by vkhorikov »

cpursley wrote: post #36
anilgulecha wrote: post #11

My wife is a Dentist in Bangalore, India, and it's amazing what I hear. Basically Cost(Flight to india + treatment cost) The more you think about it, the more crazy it seems on multiple levels. Edit, typed .

My wife and I have all our dental work completed in Russia. Not only is it a fraction of the cost, its a no-nonsense experience. An initial consultation in the US costs about as much as the actual dental work performed overseas. It's madness.

What city in Russia? Moscow? Also, shouldn't the cost of the flight eat up the difference?

Re: My adventures in medical tourism

#195

Post by maxxxxx »

crusso wrote: post #46
solutionyogi wrote: post #2

I am originally from India and came to the US 10 years ago. I still can't believe that you can not call up a doctor/clinic/hospital in US and get a price quote for something routine. Chris's experience is representative of what one can expect from the Indian health care system. If you are a working, middle class person, the free market health care works extremely well.

We have too many middle-men in US healthcare. They obscure costs and prices while preventing individuals from getting more involved with their own healthcare decisions. Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach to healthcare through single payer or other subsidies, my fondest wish for government intervention would be for laws that force doctors and hospitals to provide price and likely outcome information to the gener…

That would be my first step for health reform: Require publication of prices and outcomes. Also: Don't allow charging of one price to one group of people (uninsured) and 25% of that price for another group (insurers). One price for all. Maybe allow for 10% discount but not the huge discounts insurers get.

Re: My adventures in medical tourism

#196

Post by mariannaa »

clamprecht wrote: post #26

I should mention that Paul Buchheit wants to fund the Uber of medical tourism: https://twitter.com/paultoo/status/566379518261088258 The tweet: "I want to fund the 'Uber' of medical tourism Needs 5 star service, simplicity and safety Let me know if you apply - http://www.ycombinator.com/apply/" It really has to happen. Health care in the US is just fucked, and everyone knows it.

We're making the "Uber" and "AirBnb" of medical tourism happen here >> www.medigo.com

Tell us what you think!

Re: My adventures in medical tourism

#197

Post by [deleted] »

endymi0n wrote: post #33
clamprecht wrote: post #26

I should mention that Paul Buchheit wants to fund the Uber of medical tourism: https://twitter.com/paultoo/status/566379518261088258 The tweet: "I want to fund the 'Uber' of medical tourism Needs 5 star service, simplicity and safety Let me know if you apply - http://www.ycombinator.com/apply/" It really has to happen. Health care in the US is just fucked, and everyone knows it.

Well, the "Uber" business model is actually pretty hard to do in an industry as heavily regulated as medicine (and honestly it's a difference between getting into an unrated driver's car or putting yourself under the knife of an unrated developing country's doctor)... Then again, our friends at Medigo seem to do great service in this direction so far and have just raised a series A ( https://www.crunchbase.com/organi…

[deleted]

Re: My adventures in medical tourism

#198

Post by train_robber »

BryantD wrote: post #193
train_robber wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My home state of Kerala has one of the best health care systems in India. Infant mortality in Kerala is 6.7 (6.2 in US), life expectancy at birth is 76 (78.7 in US). Per-capita income in Kerala is $2,271 ($53,000 in US) So yes, you can provide good healthcare even with not a lot of money floating around. References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala_model

That's great reading and I appreciate it! From the Wikipedia article, it sounds like the Kerala government is very involved in health care. Am I reading that right?

Yes the government is very involved. My mother worked as a nurse in the state government health service and from what I have personally seen; the quality of government care is good and very cheap (sometimes free). But its not just the government; there are a lot of private institutions too in the state that provide quality healthcare.

Re: My adventures in medical tourism

#199

Post by opo »

acabal wrote: post #189
pdq wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great article. I'm fully in agreement with your analysis and am a huge proponent of free markets solving health care in the US. One striking area you can see the difference in the US is in elective surgeries -- for example cosmetic surgeries and Lasik surgeries. Insurance doesn't cover elective, so the providers take cash only (or credit/payments). Providers often have the fanciest and newest equipment with clean mod…

Perhaps you got the wrong takeaway from my post--I think free markets are the bane of life-or-death products like health care, and free markets are in part why America is in the health care mess it's in today. When you're dying on the side of the road, you'll pay anything to get better--and a free market will take everything, ruthlessly and without pity. That's what's happening to us, right now, today. If my mole had…

>...If my mole had been cancerous, a doctor could have demanded any price to remove it, and I would have paid it, because the alternative is death.

Is there only one Doctor where you live?

>...The ability to shop around is typically at the crux of free-market health care arguments but shopping around isn't possible in life-or-death situations like health care.

Most of health care provided is not an emergency life or death situation. You have never had been given healthcare where your life wasn't in immediate danger? That is quite unusual.

>...Literally every other country in the world understands this, and that's why health care is rightly socialized in every single other country on earth except America.

Every other country? That is clearly false - you might want to read the article for one counter-example. (There are very few countries where all health care is socialized. Most are a mix of private and public options like the US.)

Re: My adventures in medical tourism

#200

Post by grecy »

NeutronBoy wrote: post #178
grecy wrote: post #156

My brother broke his leg horribly in Australia when he was 17. It was the worst break they'd ever seen at the hospital. Ambulance ride, first surgery. Helicopter ride, second surgery, a month in hospital and third surgery and then another month or so in hospital to ween him off the morphine he had become addicted to, and to get walking again. Of course, there was never a bill.

Similar when I got kidney stones here (Aus). Emergency dept, 3 night stay, drugs, multiple x-rays, CT scan, 3 followup CT scans over 3 months, etc. No bill in sight. I realise that I pay for it through my taxes, but I'm ok with knowing if something happens I don't have to cough up thousands of dollars.

I happen to be in the US right now, and last night had a Christmas dinner with people going elsewhere tomorrow.

All 10 people spent at least an hour talking about health insurance, "Doughnut holes", the VA, and lots of other things related to the abysmal health system in the US.

It occurred to me I've never heard such a conversation in Australia, but it's simply automatically part of life that you get good care.

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