Friday, July 27, 2007
Open-Heart Surgery--90% off
Steve Forbes unloads on the health care crisis, medical tourism, organ transplants and state health care regulations in an article in Forbes. ( free registration required )
"The hospitals and physicians are usually first-rate and, amazingly, can provide operations at 10% to 30% of the cost in the U.S. For instance, knee replacement surgery that might cost $16,000 here can be done for $4,500 in a top-tier (by U.S. standards) Indian hospital."
About state red tape, Forbes says, "Another formidable roadblock is that you cannot buy health insurance policies not approved by the state in which you live. Thus, a resident of California is barred from purchasing a policy that is available in New York."
And a large part of the article is devoted to rather mobrid details of the flourishing organ transplant trade across borders. "About 7,000 Americans die each year because they are unable to get lifesaving organ transplants, primarily kidneys....Not surprisingly a growing number of sick Americans are desperately trying to make their own arrangements for organ transplants overseas, particularly in China, Pakistan, India and the Philippines....The distaste people may initially feel for the idea of "commercializing" organ transplants should be readily overcome by the unassailable fact that thousands of people--many in the prime of life--are needlessly dying. "
Can't say I disagree, but you can't wave a magic wand and get all this done. Congress hasn't been able to pass a universal single payer health plan since the Clinton Presidency, and wat we're seeing today is a direct result of that inaction. And what's more, I don't see any likelyhood of major healthcare legislation in the near future.
In other news, there's an article in the UK Telegraph about medical tourism in France. Seems the number of kneecaps, um...make that knee replacement medical tourists to France have risen dramatically in the last year. Hope the French know more about taking care of medical tourists than they do about building massive aircraft.
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