I went to get dental work done in Medellin, Colombia. Two whitening treatments, perhaps a dozen fillings. My Atlanta dentist wanted to do an inlay on one of my teeth. I'd already had two done that year and just couldn't afford to have them keep working on my teeth.
When I got to Medellin, my dentist did not want to do the inlay, said it was too invasive and that he would rather fill it.
It cost less to fly to Medellin, get all my work knocked out, than it would have for just the one inlay. And I absolutely believe that my Colombian dentist, who spoke English quite well, did better work than the Atlanta guy did. My teeth look better than they have in years.
I will never again have significant medical procedures done in the US.
I was going to Medellin for RubyConf Colombia and thought I'd get my dental stuff taken care of while I was down there.
To find the particular dentist, I reckoned that so long as the dentist spoke English and the office was well-equipped, I'd be fine, so I did a quick search on Google for Medellin dentists, picking the one that I found had the best copy on his website. Given that few in Colombia know a lot of English, it's a good bet that the dentist would be writing the copy himself.
If I got to the office and got spooked for whatever reason, I could always just line up another dentist or just forgo getting the work done. But Dr. Mejia was great.
Ok, how about this for a startup. We buy a cruise ship, hire a load of doctors, plant it in international waters and boat people out for service. Might be some problems for doing certain procedures because of the boat moving but it might work in some cases haha.
I don't see why not - but then, IANAL and I don't know what legal considerations there might be for something so unusual like this. From a technical point of view, it seems realistic, assuming operational/logistical factors can be overcome (it would almost certainly have to be in transit whilst in operation, rather than stationary).
My wife and I have all our dental work completed in Russia. Not only is it a fraction of the cost, its a no-nonsense experience. An initial consultation in the US costs about as much as the actual dental work performed overseas. It's madness.
I wrote about this last year on my blog. It would be cheaper to fly to Colombia and spend 7 days there while having a mole removed, than to have it removed in Chicago, with an ACA health insurance plan. The round-trip flight to Colombia alone, excluding any actual care or other expenses, was the same price as having an American dermatologist spend 30 seconds taking the initial biopsy.
Great article. I'm fully in agreement with your analysis and am a huge proponent of free markets solving health care in the US.
One striking area you can see the difference in the US is in elective surgeries -- for example cosmetic surgeries and Lasik surgeries. Insurance doesn't cover elective, so the providers take cash only (or credit/payments). Providers often have the fanciest and newest equipment with clean modern facilities. Prices are disclosed to and agreed upon by the patient ahead of time, and in general get cheaper over time due to competition.
FYI, the Surgery Center of Oklahoma is one of the only surgery facilities in the US which actually lists their price schedule on their website: http://surgerycenterok.com
Perhaps you got the wrong takeaway from my post--I think free markets are the bane of life-or-death products like health care, and free markets are in part why America is in the health care mess it's in today.
When you're dying on the side of the road, you'll pay anything to get better--and a free market will take everything, ruthlessly and without pity. That's what's happening to us, right now, today. If my mole had been cancerous, a doctor could have demanded any price to remove it, and I would have paid it, because the alternative is death. If my mole had instead been a time-sensitive situation, I wouldn't even have time to shop around, and I'd have to accept any price my doctor quotes--or chance death. The ability to shop around is typically at the crux of free-market health care arguments but shopping around isn't possible in life-or-death situations like health care.
Literally every other country in the world understands this, and that's why health care is rightly socialized in every single other country on earth except America.
>...If my mole had been cancerous, a doctor could have demanded any price to remove it, and I would have paid it, because the alternative is death.
Is there only one Doctor where you live?
>...The ability to shop around is typically at the crux of free-market health care arguments but shopping around isn't possible in life-or-death situations like health care.
Most of health care provided is not an emergency life or death situation. You have never had been given healthcare where your life wasn't in immediate danger? That is quite unusual.
>...Literally every other country in the world understands this, and that's why health care is rightly socialized in every single other country on earth except America.
Every other country? That is clearly false - you might want to read the article for one counter-example. (There are very few countries where all health care is socialized. Most are a mix of private and public options like the US.)
The more you think about it, the more crazy it seems on multiple levels.
Edit, typed < instead of >.