Wealthy Americans Turning To Europe For Medical Treatment 519
theodp writes "Fox Sports' Jay Glazer reports that prior to undergoing recent neck surgery, Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning flew to Europe for stem-cell therapy that's used overseas but not yet in the United States. Earlier this year, Fortune reported that prior to his liver transplant, Apple CEO Steve Jobs took an unpublicized flight to Switzerland to undergo an unusual radiological treatment which was not available in the U.S. Some Americans are willing to go abroad to seek what they can't find at home in hopes of improving — or saving — their lives, and health providers are eager to respond. 'It moves fast, this industry,' said the director of Medical Tours International in 2007. 'They think, 'Look at all these sick, rich patients.''"
So what? (Score:0, Interesting)
This has been going on for years. When dying of cancer Any Kauffman went to Mexico so a faith healer could stuff his colon full of coffee beans. Going to Europe for stem cell treatment is no different.
Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's see.
Middle income Americans go to Canada for their pharmaceuticals.
Thousands of US patients of all types go to Mexico and points south for all sorts of surgeries that aren't (yet, or ever) available in the US.
This story points to wealthy Americans going elsewhere for not-yet-approved 'edgy' radiological treatments, or stem cell therapies not practiced here.
Some on the left are going to see only that last one, and once again blame Bush for crippling US stem cell research. The fact is that is only seeing a single symptom of a more chronic condition: when you have a system crippled by politics and paralyzed by excessive litigation. when ideas, procedures, and research is circumscribed not by practicality or technology, but by policy set by science-illiterate representatives voted into their positions by a science-ignorant public for decades...well, what did we expect?
Clearly, some Americans are choosing with their WALLETS that value is more important than litiginous recourse - if you're buying a cut-rate surgery in Mexico, you're not really scrutinizing their malpractice coverage. If you're buying your heart medication from some website *.ca, FDA approval is clearly not your primary concern.
Don't get me wrong; anyone conversant with US history will recognize the consistency here. The US has always has a population that is non-intellectual, I believe even de Tocqueville commented on that in 1830. But like so many things in American popular culture, it seems the currents have somehow lately surged to tidal waves that threaten to swamp the whole boat.
Then again, that could just be me shouting "get off my lawn" like so many generations before ...
Re:Medical tourism. (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is for people who don't have insurances and can't pay for traveling outside their nation.
Fortunately, Mexico is quite close and can be visited cheaply, especially if you live in Texas or another close state.
I've got some friends who went down their for major dental work (nothing controversial or unavailable here) and paid a small fraction of what they were quoted in the US.
FDA (Score:2, Interesting)
Thank the Food and Drug administration for this. We had [slashdot.org] stories on /. about this before.
Government money in health care and insurance is the reason why these are so expensive now [slashdot.org], when technology should have made all of the health care much cheaper (unlike many people believe, technology increases efficiencies and makes things less expensive, not more. Think about imaging methods that replaced exploratory surgeries. Think how many more patients a single surgeon can see today. Think cancer treatments done with drugs or machines, that would have required surgery. etc.etc. Increase in technology makes products cheaper, not more expensive).
But not only does FDA hurt you financially, they are a major reason for various techniques not getting timely approval, so again, as an example an abortion pill [wikipedia.org] that was used for decades in Europe made it into USA decades later.
Of-course from my POV, FDA is just another government agency, standing in between you and your freedoms and liberties. Figuring out the safety of medical procedures is one thing, and it should be done privately too, by private competing certification agencies. Figuring out the efficacy should be left to the market because the market will do so much quicker and at a very low expense, when compared to the clinical trials that may last for decades and waste hundreds of millions of dollars to run them.
Medicine in America... (Score:4, Interesting)
Is one of the major reasons I'm never going back. The last time I went (which will be the last time, period) my son caught a cold and was turned away from three hospitals because we didn't have the right type of insurance. I guess I shouldn't say turned away, I should say they all told me that because I didn't have the right type of insurance and I didn't have the an appointment I would have to go to the ER, which would easily cost thousands of dollars. Here in Japan my son would have been seen immediately, for free, wherever we went. Our medical system isn't socialized either, so don't even try that argument.
Shortly after that my wife had some allergy related breathing issues and we went to a hospital that did accept the insurance we had to get medicine. They diagnosed her with a degenerative lung disorder and ordered up all sorts of tests. Even with the insurance everything cost over $2,000 and guess what - it wasn't a degenerative lung disorder but rather a simple allergy attack like we thought in the beginning. On top of that we found every hospital we went to seemed dirty, was staffed with doctors and nurses who didn't seem to give a shit, and were constantly asked the same questions over and over as if the staff didn't bother to even look at the papers the previous person had filled out. I'm not just talking about one hospital either, all of them we went to were like this.
So yeah, rich Americans go overseas for medical care? Wow, big surprise there.
Yeah, us less wealthy go to S.E. Asia (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, having lived here for awhile, I can strongly recommend some excellent hospitals in Thailand. They are accredited by some American hospital organizations and I've personally used them for the some semi-serious conditions (knee-surgery) as well as very frequent monitoring of some chronic ailments (I'm a hypochondriac!).
It's actually somewhat amazing as to the quality you get for the price. I stayed in a state-of-the-art brand new private hospital suite (with comfortable sitting area for guests, kitchenette, private bath, big screen television, remote controlled curtains, etc.) for less than the cost of one of the five star hotels. The surgery (from what I can tell state-of-the-art laproscopy) was not that cheap (still less than $5K for everything) included everything including recovery and physical therapy. Also, the cute Thai nurses were very pleasant to be around!
Can't say all S.E. Asian countries are like this (there are some I'd stay far away from) but it's a great value for the money (they've got a great executive checkup that includes just about everything; blood tests, stress tests, chest X-rays, ECG, ultrasound, eye and ear tests, meeting with dietitian, etc.) for $250!. I wish that Medicare would pay for some of this stuff, it would save American taxpayers a ton of money (saving much more than transportation costs) while bringing down prices at home.
By the way, the geeks amongst us might enjoy the fact that EVERYTHING is digital at these hospitals and for a small fee (about $8) every report, image, x-ray, ultrasound, endoscopy, MRI, ECG, EKG, video from every visit you've ever had is put onto a CD-ROM for you. I've got quite a collection on my iPad!
Re:dodging anti-science? (Score:4, Interesting)
"But if you are rich, you can bypass ..."
If you are poor, you can get a flight plus a multiple bypass in Europe for the sum of a couple of months insurance in the US.
For a couple of hundred bucks you can get a cheap flight plus an abortion in Amsterdam or London.
Re:Medicine in America... (Score:5, Interesting)
staffed with doctors and nurses who didn't seem to give a shit, and were constantly asked the same questions over and over as if the staff didn't bother to even look at the papers the previous person had filled out
I had to LOL at that. The first part is because they're frazzled after being on a 36 hour working shift dealing with people taking their kids to the hospital merely because they have the sniffles. Ask a doc what "GOMER" means... get outta my ER...
The second part is if you're having trouble breathing or in pain they do that 100% intentionally and repeatedly to document your response, on the theory that if you start hallucinating or giving bonkers results, or even worse, can no longer physically respond, that would indicate blood oxygenation problems or truly intense pain. Also its SOP to talk like that to the relatives to show "they care" and also it gets any anti-social responses out of the way during a medically irrelevant and personally staffed moment rather than during a procedure or when they're freaking out alone. Its scripted by the management and legal teams based on extensive clinical research, certainly nothing personal. They ask those specific questions because obviously they already know the "correct" answers and can therefore evaluate the mental function of the patient and patient's relatives. Finally they have to do it repeatedly to make sure the patient is at least stable or preferably improving in function... if the patient and/or relatives gives worse and worse answers as time goes on, then the docs really start freaking out (although you're not suppose to be able to notice). If the patient is getting to be a bit of a smart ass about it, that is a pretty good indication the patient is feeling much better; they're actually hoping for that kind of response; if the patient has given up all hope and is ignoring them, then the nurses and docs start freaking out. It turns out that asking someone to perform is way the heck more accurate than asking someone to evaluate their own performance; I suppose that could be culturally different. My nurse niece in law had a long sorta humorous conversation about being trained to do this, and its apparently industry wide not just her, or her hospital, or her corporation, apparently the old timers who've heard it all tend to turn the practical experience section into a laugh riot.
Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation (Score:3, Interesting)
You're arguing emotionally. You want to be correct, and so you're categorizing those who disagree with you as 'innately wrong'. There are rational reasons to consider fetuses persons, but you can't honestly appraise them with that attitude.