Medical tourism causes complications

Medical tourism causes complications

By Christina L Madden

Forty-five million Americans are currently uninsured and health expenditures in the United States are rising faster than wages and inflation. Despite spending more on health care than any other industrialized nation, the United States in 2000 ranked 37th in the World Health Organization's evaluation of health care systems around the globe. Reforming domestic health care was a big issue in the US presidential campaign, yet a growing number of Americans and insurance providers are turning to international solutions.

About 750,000 Americans traveled overseas for medical treatment in 2007, and the number of so-called medical tourists could increase to more than 15 million in 2017. In previous decades, the medical tourism industry was dominated by cosmetic and dental procedures. Today everything from knee replacements to major heart surgery can be obtained in developing countries where internationally accredited health centers provide high-quality treatment with lower costs and shorter waiting periods than in the United States.