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Medical Care Gets Outsourced Too

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the what?-you're-still-here? dept.

Muppy writes "Here's the summary from the most emailed article in The Washington Post today -- about an American who went to India for heart surgery, which he could never have afforded here. U.S.: $200,000 total cost ($50,000 deposit required) for heart operation. India: $10,000 total bill, including hospital, air fare, and a side trip to the Taj Mahal. And the Indian doctors are probably at least as good as those one is likely to get in the U.S. From the article: 'Eager to cash in on the trend, posh private hospitals are beginning to offer services tailored for foreign patients, such as airport pickups, Internet-equipped private rooms and package deals that combine, for example, tummy-tuck surgery with several nights in a maharajah's palace...'"

7 of 1,184 comments (clear)

  1. Unless we spend more on education... by Pacifix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... the US will quickly becoome a second-world country. China and India understand that an educated population is the only way to make it in today's world. We prefer to spend our money on tax cuts and trickle-down economics. The best medical care in the world should be in the US, but the way our schools are now, there are just no students to provide that service.

    1. Re:Unless we spend more on education... by (SM)+Spacemonkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I am an Australian, but since America is so powerful, I take note in what you guys do. I kept hearing your President in the debates saying you have the best healthcare in the world. America doesn't even have a universal healthcare system. You lag behind Australian and most of the countries in the European Union. I don't understand how your media doesn't through your leaders to the wall for such outrageous lies.

    2. Re:Unless we spend more on education... by value_added · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "The reason for this is because we want the best healthcare system."

      If you consider a "health care system" as consisting of nothing more than the availability of the latest technology and world-class specialists, yes, I'd agree we all want that.

      Where I live, I have easy access to auto dealerships which are more than happy to sell and service some the finest motor cars in the world. The problem is that being able to choose between a Maserati and a Porsche, in a real world sense, means as little to me as it does to the other 95% of the other folks in the U.S.

      The fact that the health and lives of ordinary people depend on such an economic model strikes me as somewhere between irresponsible and shameful.

  2. Spending isn't the problem. by jcr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The USA already outspends Germany and Japan per student. The problem isn't that we spend too little, it's that the money gets pissed away on administrative costs instead of compensating teachers adequately. Add to that the NEA's tooth-and-nail resistance to anything resembling competition or accountability, and you get the mess that is American primary education today.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  3. Several million spent this year in my city... by Belial6 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The school district here, decided that it was a good idea to spend several million dollars for football field upgrades. Until we decide that education has a higher importance in our EDUCATIONAL system than playing games, we are screwed.

    I haven't seen a school yet that hires an economics teacher, and has them fill in as a coach, but they all seem to be fine with hiring a coach and asking them to fill in as an economics teacher.

  4. Re:Canada too, eh? by savagedome · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Do not mix price and quality. Higher price doesn't necessarily mean higher quality.

    --


    Free XBox, PS2
  5. Re:This is news to ANYBODY? by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 5, Insightful
    That being said no matter how you do it it'll be unfair. I personally happen to believe that it's *least* unfair when you directly pay for a service.

    The percentage of people who have the personal resources to personally pay for the worst case health problems is in the low single digits. That means that health care gets rationed here in the USA, too. It's just a different system; people who have full-time jobs at large corporations usually get first priority. (Why does the size of your employer have anything to do with health care? Who knows.) Then come the perfectly healthy people who are allowed to buy individual policies, and people who work at small employers where none of their coworkers are too sick to lose the group plan. Lowest in the rationing pecking order are uninsured who rely on emergency room triage.

    Oh, I forgot that half of the healthcare in this country is fully socialized. It's just for everyone who is old enough to get on medicare so that they can get free coveraged paid for by those of us who actually have to work (but don't get to actually benefit from the socialized healthcare we pay for ourselves).

    At the end of the day, almost nobody is actually directly paying for their healthcare in the US anyway.