WP: Surgeries, Side Trips For India's 'Tourists'

[kskiska]

Cheap Health Care Draws Foreigners

Thursday, October 21, 2004; Page A01

NEW DELHI -- Three months ago, Howard Staab learned that he suffered from a life-threatening heart condition and would have to undergo surgery at a cost of up to $200,000 -- an impossible sum for the 53-year-old carpenter from Durham, N.C., who has no health insurance.

So he outsourced the job to India.

Taking his cue from cost-cutting U.S. businesses, Staab last month flew about 7,500 miles to the Indian capital, where doctors at the Escorts Heart Institute & Research Centre -- a sleek aluminum-colored building across the street from a bicycle-rickshaw stand -- replaced his balky heart valve with one harvested from a pig. Total bill: about $10,000, including roundtrip airfare and a planned side trip to the Taj Mahal.

"The Indian doctors, they did such a fine job here, and took care of us so well," said Staab, a gentle, pony-tailed bicycling enthusiast who was accompanied to India by his partner, Maggi Grace. "I would do it again."

(snip)

"Nobody even questions the capability of an Indian doctor, because there isn't a big hospital in the United States where there isn't an Indian doctor working," he said.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49743-2004Oct20.html

[Eye and Monkey]

1. Ooops, I bet the AMA wasn't counting on THAT.

[Trillo]

2. Hmm, next corporate tactic? Keep plane travel too scary?

Close down those borders?

[pfitz59]

3. Radiologic services being outsourced.....

X-rays and such being read by MDs in India for a fraction of the cost. My radiologist friend is not pleased, (but he's still voting for Bush*!)

[MisterP]

4. I thought this ONLY happened under socialized medicine

<sarcasm off>

[Dem2theMax]

5. Hey. Surgery, low cost and a vacation all in one plan.

Now that kind of outsourcing I'll take. Gee, thanks * ! :evilgrin:

[ejcastellanos]

6. Probably part of the Bush medical plan <nt>