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Leaks:Pending Trade Agreement on Healthcare Proposes Shipping Poorer Patients Overseas to Save Money (Original Post) Baobab May 2016 OP
Healthcare tourism is not a new idea. Even not-for-profit hospital groups are exploring it tonyt53 May 2016 #1
This wont be voluntary. Also, this will often be overseas- out of the country- or Baobab May 2016 #2
Our company's healthcare started incentivizing use of out-of-state cheaper places...as a single mom lostnfound May 2016 #3
What kind of tests? lostnfound May 2016 #4
all kinds, especially imaging, this has been going on for decades Baobab May 2016 #5
 

tonyt53

(5,737 posts)
1. Healthcare tourism is not a new idea. Even not-for-profit hospital groups are exploring it
Thu May 26, 2016, 04:56 PM
May 2016

I'm not sure if that is more sad than scary.

Baobab

(4,667 posts)
2. This wont be voluntary. Also, this will often be overseas- out of the country- or
Thu May 26, 2016, 05:26 PM
May 2016

Last edited Fri May 27, 2016, 12:33 PM - Edit history (1)

its even more likely, foreign firms will set up operations here, paying their workers at home wages, and rotating them in and out every five years or so so it wont be immigration, so profits will be higher and wages much lower. This will likely happen in dozens of service industries soon.
Wages will plummet.

Nor will it be that cheap.

----

Re: overseas testing standards often higher- thats likely because US HMOs pressure labe to be less accurate.

HMOs hate the way that Americans can go overseas and get better testing there than they can here and then come back here and get treatment from their HMO that devoted a lot of energy into making it impossible for them to get diagnosed.

Some HMOs run their own in house labs now..

US labs have changed their standards to please US HMOs who want them to find that most people are healthy even when they aren't..

lostnfound

(16,138 posts)
3. Our company's healthcare started incentivizing use of out-of-state cheaper places...as a single mom
Fri May 27, 2016, 08:00 AM
May 2016

I find the idea a bit absurd. The cost of being away from home for a few days when it comes to babysitters or chauffeurs, isn't factored in, and also, for those lucky enough to have friends and family in their town, there's loss of their support during major surgery etc.


It is advertised as "centers of excellence" but the criteria seems financial, not best quality.

If you're going for major surgery, do you want your spouse to be in another state taking care of the kids?

Baobab

(4,667 posts)
5. all kinds, especially imaging, this has been going on for decades
Fri May 27, 2016, 11:27 AM
May 2016

also the people who read the imaging are notoriously overworked with some HMOs and could never examine them adequately. So people used to pretend to be uninsured and pay cash under a different name and now they go overseas. But the HMOs hate that because then they get accurate medicine which they don't want. Basically they do not want to admit somebody is sick because then they have to treat them.

There are web sites that detail these battles.. Google "failure to diagnose".

In the US HMOs are protected by ERISA Section 514 which basically is a license to kill people as long as they lower the standard of care slowly they get away with it.

A big part of Obamacare is lowering the standard of care. People from other countries who are put in US ha.. "Cadillac plans" (nothing could be farther from the truth) get so much lower care here than in Europe they literally quit and go back bringing all their stuff back, rather than risk their family members lives with US medicine.

Thats how bad it is here now.

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