NCPA Nod to Medical Tourism

India and Thailand May Offer Feasible Solutions to Healthcare Crisis

The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) has released a study that promotes medical tourism to developing countries like India as a way out of the present high cost problems that dog the American healthcare system.  According to the NCPA, per capita spending on health in the US is growing at twice the rate of national income growth.  Patients have been traveling abroad for medical treatment for years now, and it just might point a way out of the current healthcare crisis.   

Medical Tourism: The Detroit Effect

“Foreign hospitals are posing a challenge to domestic hospitals, similar to the challenge Japanese automakers posed for Detroit,” NCPA Chairman John Goodman says.  To be able to compete with foreign facilities, he says, American healthcare must be “freed from unwise public policy constraints.” The reasons for the lowered costs don’t lie in merely the dramatically lowered labor costs in countries like India and Thailand.  In these parts of the world, insurance or government interference in hospital matters is negligible, and there is a greater transparency in the pricing structure.  The hefty malpractice insurance that American doctors carry is another reason for the wide difference in costs between foreign hospitals and domestic facilities. 

Low Plastic Surgery Prices Lure Americans

The American Heart Association and the American Cardiology Association don’t have an official stance against medical tourism. The American society of Plastic Surgeons hasn’t been that impressed however.  They warn against traveling abroad only to save on plastic surgery prices, cautioning that patients risk their health by flying so soon after a major surgery.  And it’s not just the major surgeries that are moving away from the US.  The cost of dental bonding, can be anywhere between $300 and $600 in the US. In a country like India, the cost can be a fraction of this price.  With jaw dropping differences in the costs of everything from the simplest laser hair removal session to dental bonding, patients are choosing cost effective options that don’t pinch.