The tequila anesthesia is awesome!
You get cheap, non-union, staff, and no lawsuits.
Overall, a win-win, from what I can tell.
I wonder if this is also a way to get an adequate pain relief prescription? I had a procedure done not too long ago and my surgeon told me that Tylenol would be enough but it was not.
Damn... if this catches on how are we going to pay the high salaries, generous benefits and early retirements for all the highly paid bureaucrats at Medicare headquarters in Baltimore?
There is no reforming the present US medical system - particularly medicare and medicaid. Too many people are totally dependent on it, and the bureaucratic and financial vested interests are absolutely huge.
The only way to help Americans and allow choice is to allow some kind of laissez-faire system to develop around it - cash-only payments, medical tax-free and reduced regulation zones, reduced tort liability. I don’t have all the answers, but I do know our present system will bankrupt us and will eventually turn into a 100% state run system.
The reason this works is because is that the U.S. hospital costs are overpriced and the doctor’s fees are underpriced.
In the end everyone wins because overall price for patient is less and quality is preserved. Here we gave an example of free market prevailing over a market distorted by overrgulation.
The 2 major reason for high hospital prices are government regulation and litigation, with regulation as the chief burden by far. The regulatory costs in healthcare are disgusting because federal government takes a predatory approach to regulation. The regulation only adds cost and does not have any positive effect on patient safety. In fact much of the regulation detracts from safety because of the numerous delays and denials of care.
“To alleviate concerns about quality of care, American surgeons are traveling to perform their procedures, The New York Times reports with Kaiser Health News.”
Why is the quality of care in Mexico a concern?
Personally I’d worry more about the cleanliness of the OR than the doctor performing the knee surgery - I doubt there are Americans sterilizing the facility to eliminate post op infections.
Having said that, there’s something very wrong with a health system so divorced from free market economics that it incentivizes this sort of behavior.
How government screws up everything it touches.
Another reason could be because of insurance companies not approving a needed preventative procedure until you are almost dead. Folks have died because of this control over life or death the government handed to insurance companies.
No suing though. While I hate frivolous medical malpractice suits, the fact that the doc CAN be sued for malpractice does keep them at the height of patient concern.
Some Mexican doctors have killed patients out of sheer negligence and are treating and slicing the very next day and then on for years.
having an american surgeon perform the surgery does nothing to insure the quality of the operating room and the quality of the after-care in the mexican hospital ...