Topic: Americans go to Mexico for medicals to cut costs. - page 7. (Read 1022 times)

Maybe, if you have no health insurance, that's when your medical expenses will be expensive in the US.
Based from the kidnapping story, the woman was about to have a tummy tuck procedure.
Most health insurances I believe, do not cover such operation as it is categorized as cosmetic surgical procedure.
This is why maybe Mexico is considerably cheaper from their US counterparts. However, your safety is at risk.
We can't blame others to go to this path as they can really save a lot of dollars, however, think of your security also.

according to the research that I read the costs there are cheaper compared to America, have good quality and mostly why Americans go there because it's convenient

I don't see anything surprising in "medical tourism". I can say one thing - from about 2015-2016, medical tourism began to come to Ukraine from the EU. The main direction: dentistry, intracavitary operations, and similar general medical procedures. The reason is banal - with high quality, a noticeably lower price.
To clarify, in 2014-2015, many state clinics were reequipped, provided with new equipment, separate well-equipped wards, and high-quality staff. The price difference is really noticeable and the trip is economically justified

The price of things ,I e, services, goods, globally has been on the increase. It is not just an all American issue.
Inflation not forgetting is one key factor.
If Americans prefer going to Mexico for cheaper treatment/medicals, it could be they lost faith in their health care too, notwithstanding.
It shouldn't really be a problem. Every other country citizens, like mine, with good means of livelihood, mostly prefer going outside the shores of their country for better evaluation or medicals too.

It's not that abnormal really, maybe America has it slightly worse because their healthcare system is seriously overpriced but you will find the same things happening with other countries too. Europeans might end up in Turkey for dental operations or similar cosmetic procedures. In the right scenarios it makes sense, but sometimes tourists can be clueless and only look at saving money, which can get them into seriously dangerous situations like this. As one of the worst hot spots for crime and cartel problems in Mexico, it's really not a bright idea to go across the border in this area - no matter who you are. If it's the difference between a $20,000 operation and a $2,000 operation, it can be a huge incentive.

Hell no! You have to change word America with word Europe. For example, countries like Germany and France have very good healthcare that is also affordable for every citizen. Turkey and Israel have great healthcare too, Israel is a little expensive but Turkey is pretty cheap with very high quality and standards in terms of medicine and medical services.

The USA is a very different country. Drugs that are illegal in many countries, are perfectly legal in the USA with prescription.
Pharma is a huge business in the USA. For example, average price per vial of insulin in the US was more than $98 in 2018 while it's was 10 times cheaper in Australia, Canada, UK. Price per vial of insulin in Turkey is 2.64 USD. No country should be profiting from people whose lives are dependent on medicines like Insulin. Btw as far as I know, things are going to get better in terms of Insulin in the USA.

Also, in the USA, doctors sometimes charge enormous amounts of money to their clients. Healthcare is very unregulated, America is a very capitalistic country. If you earn a lot, you'll living the best life in the USA, if you are below-average, or probably average too citizen with chronic health problems and don't work in a company that offers you private insurance, you will have very bad times in the USA.

P.S. I am not an American but I have friends there and that's what I know from them and from my own research too.

Definitely shocking to read that chart. I did the same thing when I saw it and was looking for America. TO the surprise its not even on the list.

Something is definitely wrong with the chart above because other sources are showing the USA is one of highest spender on the per person when it comes to the healthcare. Also, by hearing itself one can get convinced considering the nation is highly developed and understands the value of healthcare sector.




If you look at the chart above then the case is actually reverse of what that post suggested. It is possible that the data is mis-circulated in that one. Above source is from the valid sources such as KFF analysis of CDC, OECD, Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare, Australian Bureau of Statistics, and UK Office for Health Improvement and Disparities.

As one can imagine mostly powerful nations are on the list who spends most of the money per capita.

Now why those people are travelling to the Mexico is whole new story here and mostly it has to be about costs. The insurance in the American system can hugely impact the decision making process of any person going for high level of illness.

Wait, what? I can't see The United States on that list. Does that mean that one of the most powerful nations and a very developed country spends less than 6.3% of its GDP on its healthcare systems? That's pretty surprising, and no wonder why people from there travel to neighboring countries for their medical necessities.

And I believe that it happens in almost every country where the lower classes who can at least travel go somewhere else to get proper treatment at less cost. Governments need to take good care of their healthcare systems more than they do right now.

It is just too obvious that Americans will prefer going to Mexico for healthcare than staying there because healthcare services is very cost in America. We know that American government would rather prefer to spend money of weapons and military than that of an healthcare. That is why many foreigners that need healthcare services would prefer to go to other countries like Germany, India and the rest than to have healthcare services in the country. It is not that the healthcare services is poor but too expensive for a common man.

Purely cosmetic procedures like butt lifts and breast augmentation are another known reason for americans seeking medical services abroad.

Dentistry is another known example.

There is a potential for cross border business opportunities as well. Texans have travelled to mexico to buy cars, trucks and other equipment at low cost. Which they would haul into the united states to resell with a prick markup in a practice resembling arbitrage trading. Is one common practice, I have heard of.

While it may not make news headlines often. For those who live near to the border and have easy access, it could be a way of life.

Well, you obviously thought wrong. No country is perfect and all Americans doesn’t have access to cheap nor quality medical health care service. Americans travel all over for health care services not cause they offer better services but they offer cheaper services that can’t be gotten back at home.
Medical tourism happens everywhere and people from so called developed nations travel out to seek cheaper but not necessarily better healthcare

In developed countries like America you can survive well as long as your income is good. Although these countries are technologically more advanced than other countries, you also need to be financially stable to avail these services. And currently, the energy crisis caused by the war between Russia and Ukraine has increased the cost of all services around the world.  In this case, the low-income people in every country are unable to adapt, so most people try to find alternative ways. In this case too I think this point has been repeated.

It is not only about medical costs, since the pandemic began I have also seen some news on Americans going to Mexico so they can get cheaper gasoline. There is a brief documentary film of a couple who decided to move from California to Mexico, because both the food and a home was more affordable for them (since they worked online).

I wonder how the average American manages to do all these things, keeping in mind the language barrier and the culture.

Medical tourism exists everywhere and we can't pin point any particular country and say every citizen has the accessibility to highest tier medical assistance irrespective of their financial status and these stats about country and how much they spend is an average value but it can't be realistic when it comes to individual.

The healthcare on the US is very expensive to the point that if you are going to have to go through a major procedure and you are in the conditions to travel to other countries like Mexico or Brazil many US citizens prefer to take their chances and go to those countries, and then an event like the one we watched recently can unfold, and while this has opened a debate about the dangers of going to Mexico, this tragedy also needs to open a debate about a healthcare system which is forcing the people they are supposed to serve to go to those countries to begin with.

I read on the Internet that even in the UK there are not enough good doctors. 

At the same time, Great Britain (Foggy Albion) is famous as a country with a very high standard of living.  There are not many highly qualified doctors. 

At present, rich people, representatives of the world elite, are provided with very qualified medical care.  In some cases, modern medicine works wonders. 

However, there are 8 billion people in the world.  It is not easy to organize a stable functioning system for the provision of quality medical services.  So I'm not surprised by the news that some US states have failed to do so.  It is likely that medical services in these areas are either too expensive or of insufficient quality. 

That is why some Americans prefer to travel to Mexico for treatment.  This is common practice.  This is called medical tourism.

It would be nice to hear from someone who is from USA if it is legit and if it is really happening in considerable scale, because there have always been a lot of negative propaganda about US in order to defame the country's image launched by its foreigners rivals with tendencies to leftist policies, so it's not the kind of thing which looks credible at first glance. And in case medical treatments in Mexico are much cheaper, someone must ask himself what is the reason for that, which looks pretty suspicious in every csses, right?

It will mostly not be for any other reason other than to cut cost. With the rising cost of things people seek alternatives that offer same quality but at a lesser price. The same behaviour can be observed even amongst people in my country who travel to neighbouring countries to book international flights because of the very high cost of international flights in my country. People usually go through extra stress when they know it is cost beneficial especially when they see no particular difference between the services offered by the two parties in comparison with one having a higher cost than the other.

There is a joke going around that if you get a cold in US and visit a hospital you'd go bankrupt.

Ever since they infected US economy with capitalism, everything went south. From all the industries that went bankrupt and had to migrate overseas leaving millions unemployed and many homeless in America to every other service that got worse over time. Over all the quality of life in US has been going down every year for the past 40+ years.

Medical services is not an exception either. It slowly got more expensive and at the same time the quality of services dwindled. At this point it is safer to receive medical services elsewhere including Mexico than inside US not to mention that it is way cheaper.

It is not just them but also other nations and nationalities goes to another country and continent for medical tourism. Wherever is the need they need to have, they'll go there just like those tourists that are going for cheap gadgets and other stuff, this isn't really something new.

Like in South East Asian countries, there goes Thailand where those tourists that wants to have themselves sex changed, they go there because it's cheaper there and that's the same with Americans going South for their medical needs and wants to cut a lot of cost for their medical bills.