Cost-Saving Surgery Lures ‘Medical Tourists’ Abroad
Overseas care especially attractive to uninsured
July 24, 2006  - Seattlepi.com Click Here
 

Special Report Check In, Check Up - July 1st, 2006
Medical tourism takes off in Thailand
www.macaubusiness.com/index.php?id=517

Outsourcing Your Heart
By Unmesh Kher
May 21, 2006 - Time in partnership with CNN
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171.html

The International Herald Tribune
December 2, 2005
 
“Carlo Gislimberti, a 60-year-old American, was convalescing recently after a triple bypass. When he had his third heart attack in May, he was, like 50 million other American, without health insurance. His doctor told him a bypass would cost over $150,000. Because he did not qualify for government assistance, he would have had to sell his Italian restaurant in Taos, New Mexico, to pay the bill. The total cost of surgery and 20-day stay in the New Delhi hospital was $10,000. He was operated on by Dr. Trehan, who used the latest surgical technology. Gislimberti then recovered in a shining, marble floored wing of the hospital, waited on by smiling staff wearing badges reading “May I help you?”
 
“I was facing financial death or death by heart attack.” he said.

San Francisco Chronicle
November 11, 2005
  
“…21 percent of health care expenditures were spent on insurance administration and an additional 13 percent was used to cover other administrative tasks, such as maintaining medical records. "What you're left with is that 66 cents (out of every dollar) is spent on health care".

 
CBS 60 Minutes
September 4, 2005
 
Kim Atwater from Bend, Ore., was on vacation in Thailand when she decided to combine sightseeing with a bit of an eyelift.
  
Was she nervous about having an operation done in Thailand?
  
"Yes, yes, I was somewhat hesitant about having any type of operation in a foreign country, and it turned out to be, I mean, it was beyond my expectations," says Atwater.
  
And it was not beyond her budget: $1,500 and that included a private room.
  
How would she describe the difference between this place and an American hospital? "It's much nicer than any that I’ve ever stayed in the United States," says Atwater.

Medical Tourism Growing Worldwide
July 25, 2005 By Becca Hutchinson - University of Delaware. Click to Read

News Target.com - April 21, 2005
Rising popularity of medical tourism reveals deterioration of U.S. healthcare system. Click to Read

Wikipedia – Medical Tourism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tourism