Universal Health Care

Why Americans Are Traveling To Mexico For Medical Care

Everyone in America is talking about healthcare reform, skyrocketing medical costs, and the increasing inability of average Americans to afford even the most fundamental medical and dental care due to unreasonably high costs. The news is full of statistics: 45 million people are without health insurance, and that figure is increasing every month as unemployment soars. Another 45 million are ‘under insured’ – that is, with out-of-pocket costs and deductibles so high that they are unable to afford doctor and hospital fees when the need arises. More than 110 million are currently without dental insurance and unable to get the care they need. Yet even the uninsured have another option. In response to rising healthcare costs at home, more U.S. citizens have gone abroad to take advantage of the excellent doctors and dentists available through medical tourism to Mexico.

Convenient, significantly less expensive, and featuring the same or a better quality of care, sophistication of treatment, and breadth of medical services as the U.S., Mexico’s state-of-the-art private hospitals make medical tourism to Mexico an ideal solution for anyone struggling with the high cost of medical expenses in America. Medical travel connects patients with new, modern facilities located in upscale residential and international business districts. There are a number of prominent Mexican hospitals in cities such as Tijuana, Monterrey, Juarez, Mexicali, Guadalajara, and Mexico City regularly working with medical travelers from all parts of the globe to treat all types of medical issues. For example, Mexico hospitals host American and Canadian patients for orthopedic, spinal, cardiology, cosmetic, and weight loss surgery and dental procedures on a daily basis.

Cost Is The Major Issue

Medical travel to Mexico is more popular than ever before, but traveling to Mexico for treatment is not a new idea. Residents of the southern states have long taken advantage of the inexpensive health care across the border, with many taking advantage of medical travel on a monthly basis. Currently, nearly one million Californians make regular use of the Mexican health care system, crossing the border for check-ups, prescriptions, family dentistry, and surgeries of all types. Some 1.5 million Americans have taken the further step of retiring to Mexico, taking advantage of the lower cost of living, temperate climate, and access to affordable health care. For as little as $250 a year, Americans who move to Mexico are able to receive medical care with no deductibles, low cost x-rays, eyeglasses, dental work, and free prescription medicines.

In its report, “Medical Tourism: Consumers In Search of Value,” the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions estimates about 5 million Americans traveled abroad for medical care in 2009. Researchers expect this number to grow substantially, rising to over 20 million within ten years. Medical tourism destinations vary, but for Americans Mexico is the ideal solution. In Mexico, Americans can get the same quality and standards of care for less than half the cost of the same procedure stateside – often working with surgeons who have train and practice in the US, and work closely with American medical device manufacturers. For some procedures, the difference in cost is even greater, costing only a third of the American price in Mexico. The tens of thousands of patients who come to Mexico each year know how significant those savings are, even after factoring in travel costs.

Lack Of Insurance Increases The Demand For Low-Cost Healthcare

Sadly, many Americans do not have adequate health insurance to cover the high costs of necessary medical care. With record job losses and a continuing economic recession, Americans continue to lose employer-sponsored medical insurance at an unprecedented rate, forcing them into expensive COBRA payments of up to $12,000 per year, and declaring medical bankruptcies at a rate of 2 million per year. Frustrated with the broken American health care system, more Americans than ever before are discovering that they can receive the same high quality medical care and identical prescription drugs at a much lower cost in Mexico than they can get domestically. According to research by the U.S. Medical Tourism Association, the vast majority of U.S. patients who have taken advantage of medical travel to Mexico rate their experience as equivalent and even superior to U.S. hospitals and doctors.

Savvy employers in Texas, California, and South Carolina are joining this trend, taking the step of investing in Mexican health care programs for their employees frequently at one-fifth the cost of American health coverage. These plans are significantly less expensive for employers as compared to traditional American medical insurance programs. Employees also save on deductibles and out-of-pocket costs as well as on prescription medication costs. The fact that most hospital medical travel packages include such extras as travel coordination services, lab work, and hotel stay makes medical tourism to Mexico, even more appealing.

Convenience And Travel Options

Residents of Arizona, California, and Texas have long crossed the border to major Mexico cities such as Tijuana, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Mexico City, and Juarez for sophisticated medical care in state-of-the-art hospitals, most less than five years old. Nearly half of all American citizens live within driving distance of the major Mexico hospitals regularly serving medical travelers. For everyone else, there are frequent and inexpensive flights to the major destinations for medical tourism in Mexico, making it easy to get quality, affordable health care just a short car ride or flight away.

Without doubt, medical tourism to Mexico has done more than any other industry to put high quality medical care within financial reach for all American citizens. Mexico hospitals are responding by teaming with experienced medical tourism facilitators, hotels, resorts, and airlines to create discounted travel and lodging options for Americans coming to Mexico for their medical care. These complete packages ensure that American patients get access to the best possible medical teams, but are also able to enjoy a stress-free recovery period. A good medical tourism facilitator will handle everything, allowing the patient to focus on the most important part of treatment: your recovery. With a comprehensive company and the right hospital, medical tourism to Mexico, is a great choice for any American.

Contributor:
Paulo Yberri writes for Angeles Health International, a medical travel agency specializing in medical tourism, Mexico. AHI is your passport to best in class Mexico hospitals. http://www.angeleshealth.com/tijuana/about.html

Universal Health Care – Ethical Issues In Health Care Reform

Universal health care seems to be a hotly debated topic whenever health care reform in the United States is discussed.

Those who maintain that health is an individual responsibility do not want a system that requires them to contribute tax dollars to support fellow citizens who do not act responsibly in protecting or promoting their own health. They argue that they want the freedom to choose their own physicians and treatments, and suggest that government cannot know what is best for them. These people argue that preserving the current system with improvements to provide better insurance coverage for citizens who remain uninsured or under insured for their medical care needs is the only reform that is needed.

Those who believe health care is an individual right support a universal health care system with the argument that every citizen deserves to have access to the right care at the right time and that a government’s responsibility is to protect its citizens, sometimes even from themselves.

Two opposing arguments arising from two opposing ideologies. Both are good arguments but neither can be the supporting argument for implementing or denying universal health care. The matter must be resolved through an ethical framework.

Examination of the ethical issues in health care reform would require consideration of much different arguments than those already presented. Ethical issues would center on the moral right.

Discussion would begin with not “What is best for me?” but rather “How should we as a society be acting so that our actions are morally correct?”

Ethics refers to determining right and wrong in how humans relate to one another. Ethical decision making for health care reform then would require human beings to act in consideration of our relationships to each other not our own individual interests.

Examination of some of the common ethical decision making theories can provide a foundation for a different perspective than one that is solely concerned with individual rights and freedoms.

Ethical decision making requires that specific questions be answered in order to decide on whether intended actions are good or morally correct.

Here are some questions that could be used in ethical decision making for health care reform.

* What action will bring the most good to the most people?
* What action in and of itself is a good act and helps us to fulfill our duties, obligations, and responsibilities to each other?
* What action in and of itself shows caring and concern for all citizens?

As the answer to all these questions, universal health care can always be considered the right thing to do.

The United States is in the most advantageous position there is when it comes to health care reform. They are the only developed country without a national health care system in place for all citizens. They have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes that have been made by all the other countries that have already gone down the universal health care road. They have an opportunity to design a system that can shine as a jewel in the crown of universal health care systems everywhere.

However, all ethical decision making is structured around values. In order for universal health care to be embraced by all citizens in the United States, they will first have to agree to the collective value of equity and fairness and embrace the goal of meeting their collective responsibility to each other while maintaining individual rights and freedoms.

That may prove to be the most difficult obstacle of all.

Contributor:
Beverly Hansen OMalley is a nurse who is passionate about addressing the social determinants of health. At www.registered-nurse-canada.com Beverly explores the role of the nurse and some of the unique features of the Canadian health care system