Posted on 02/16/2015 9:46:13 AM PST by Kaslin
An Opinion article in the Washington Post by John R. Graham explains How Domestic Medical Tourism Could Save Us All Money.
One of the most under-reported medical success stories in recent years has been the increase in medical tourism: traveling abroad to get high-quality care at a fraction of what it would cost in the United States.Creating Incentives
The same Lasik eye surgery that might cost $4,400 here (for both eyes) is available in India, for example, for $500, according to the Medical Tourism Association. A heart-valve replacement that might cost $170,000 in the United States could cost less than $30,000 in Israel.
While going overseas for care isn’t for most people, it certainly should make us wonder why we don’t encourage Americans, especially Medicare recipients whose bills are largely paid by taxpayers, to at least shop around in their own states or communities.
The best way to slow this growth is not by putting the squeeze on Medicare beneficiaries, as well as drug companies, hospitals and other providers — as President Obama’s $4 trillion budget plan would do — or by creating new bureaucratic barriers to care, but by providing Medicare recipients with incentives to seek the best care for the best price. And you do that by allowing them to share in the gains from reducing costs.
Right now, there are virtually no incentives anywhere in the system for people to lower costs. Put incentives in to lower costs, and costs will come down.
web.archive.org/web/20130811135205/http://www.chesterton.org/2012/02/a-prophetic-look-at-national-health-care-2/
G.K. Chesterton considered himself a member of the Liberal Party until 1912. As he would later say, he did not leave the Liberal Party. It left him. He believed in something called liberty, the idea that people should be able to make most decisions for themselves, especially the most basic and most important decisions, and not have such decisions made for them by anyone else, especially by the government. He believed, as a liberal, that the State’s role was to preserve liberty, not take it away.
What happened in 1912? The Liberal Party, which held power in Parliament, passed The Health Insurance Act. Every working man was required to have part of his wages withheld to pay for a national health insurance. The funding was to be further supplemented by a tax on every employer. Sound familiar?
Chesterton’s objections to the Insurance Act were threefold. First, it was anti-democratic in practice. The vast majority of the English population was against it. It was being passed against their will, but—so the argument went—for their own good. Second, it was anti-democratic in principle. It divided the populace into two permanent castes: those who labor, and those who pay for the labor. Chesterton called this what it is: slavery. Third, Chesterton saw the Act as paving the way to the State seizing more power, more influence, more interference in everyone’s daily lives. Sound familiar?
About a century later, here in America, we are looking at essentially the same thing that Chesterton was looking at. We watched as a National Health Care program was passed in utter defiance of public support, rammed through the legislative process by one party rather than by any sort of consensus. We have also watched the reinforcement of a system comprised of employers and employees, of wage-earners rather than independent, self-sufficient and truly “self-employed” citizens. And we have also watched the unimaginable growth of government as it has insinuated itself into every aspect of our lives.
One of Chesterton’s strongest objections to the Insurance Act was the increase in taxes to those who could scarcely afford to have any of their income taken from them, even if it was to be used for something specific like health care. The tax prevented a man from paying for other needs he had that might be just as important as medical care. He was being forced to pay for medical care that he might not need. What other things that he did not need would the State decide he must also pay for?
Chesterton pointed out that a compulsory Health Insurance Act was first passed in Germany. It followed another compulsory act that was also first passed in Germany: compulsory education. Chesterton was a vocal opponent of state-sponsored compulsory education, for the same reasons he was against a national health insurance. It was an attack on freedom. It gave the government too much power, and it took away a basic freedom from the citizen. The liberal argument was that the State was providing a valuable service. Chesterton’s counter-argument was that though the State was providing education, it was the State’s education. Though it was providing medicine, it was a forced medicine. With a compulsory insurance, he argued, people were being forced to pay to be protected against themselves. People are often willing to trade freedom for security. But the problem is that it is usually someone else trading our freedom for our security.
Although Chesterton found himself allied with the conservatives on the issue of health care, he might point out now that one of the reasons we have gotten into the present mess was that health care became an industry, controlled by large corporations rather than independent practitioners, and every industry tends to grow till it forms an alliance with big government. When health care started becoming too expensive, the solution was supposed to be health insurance. But insurance quickly made health care even more expensive. On the one hand, the medical industry stopped worrying about being affordable; on the other, a new layer of private bureaucracy and overhead was added that also needed to be paid for. Is there a solution? Yes. There is one drastic solution.
But sometimes issues of health require drastic measures. The health care system needs radical surgery. The honest thing to do is do away with health insurance. Doctors and hospitals and clinics should start selling a product that people can afford, and that they should not have to buy unless they actually need the product. It should not cost a thousand dollars to treat an ingrown toenail. But it does. It should not cost $30,000 to set a broken arm. But it does. Ours is a system that cannot be sustained. That is why the government feels justified to step in.
Chesterton prophesied this very scenario. He warns that the State cannot become a Universal Provider without becoming just another big shop. The one thing we’ve seen about big shops is that they collapse. We can avoid the big collapse if we start getting small again. We might even get healthy again.
—Dale Ahlquist for the editorial board of Gilbert Magazine
*This editorial appeared in the April/May 2010 issue of Gilbert Magazine, which you can read in its entirety right here.
Big crony capitalist health care companies got laws passed to keep US Citizens from going abroad to shop for cheaper prescription drugs.
They’ll cross a few palms on Capitol Hill and shut this down too.
Perhaps you meant to post this one
While it is true that a complex mix of factors combine to make our health care system really expensive, I would say “caveat emptor” to anyone contemplating buying services overseas. I would suggest looking at the regulations governing health care—are the clinics inspected? Are licensing policies for practitioners comparable to those here? What is the recourse for victims of malpractice? Etc. There are many questions that should be answered prior to going to some other country for care.
I bought a certified Rolex in Cancun at a "real jewelry store" for $700, except it wasn't.
I had my eye Lasik surgery done in Pittsburgh, in 1999, for $3,600 and my vision is still 20/15 and it was 20/120 before the procedure.
I'll stay here and pay the money and get what I pay for.
“Medical Tourism” gives proof positive that the free market WORKS.
Why not say “Caveat Emptor” to those that are consuming healthscare HERE?
Costs won’t start to go down until there is a return of an economic relationship between supply and demand, as this article suggests, but also until there is deregulation of medicine, both regulations imposed by the government and by non-government entities like insurance companies and JCOH. The cost of these regulations are both direct (bureaucrats gotta eat) and indirect (extra time providers spend complying, need for more staff, cost for computers and software, etc ad infinitum).
You are on the money, no pun intended. Two things, when something is subsidized, people consume more of it. Second, non-US treatment eliminates the worry of lawsuits.
Absolutely right, the market has separated the consumer from the actual cost of the consumed item.
It is also possible to lower costs if a person pays cash. Obviously, not everybody can do that, but it never hurts to ask.
I had carpal tunnel surgery done 1 year ago in Costa Rica.
Took me a week to get the appointment with the Osteopathic Surgeon, but then we did the surgery the NEXT WORKING DAY.
Next working day appointment with the Neurologist for the EMG on both hands. Followed by the surgery 3 hours later.
The Osteopath gave me his cell number, checked prices for EMG and surgical suite, once I determined it was in my budget he scheduled it on the spot.
EMG confirmed that I had problems in both wrists.
Surgical suite had 4 nurses set up room, 2 stayed during surgery.
After surgery, price included follow up visit with Surgeon. Told me to call him if any problems and for followup.
Overall price included prescriptions needed afterward.
So what did this all cost me for one wrist (paid cash)? $1300.
PS - wanted x-ray of a broken finger. Walked in to a clinic off the street, walked out 20 minutes later with x-ray’s in my hand (2 shots) and on my thumb drive (digital x-ray machine) for a grand total of $35.
Healthcare company stock prices have gone up 80-90% since Obamacare.
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