Going Abroad to Find Affordable Health Care

copy and post by Mei Ling Lin

WHEN Ben Schreiner, a 62-year-old retired Bank of America executive, found out last year he would need surgery for a double hernia, he started evaluating possible doctors and hospitals. But he didn’t look into the medical center in his hometown, Camden, S.C., or the bigger hospitals in nearby Columbia. Instead, his search led him to consider surgery in such far-flung places as Ireland, Thailand and Turkey.

Ultimately he decided on San José, Costa Rica, where just a week or so after the outpatient procedure and initial recovery, he and his wife were sightseeing throughout the country, then relaxing at a lush resort. He was home four weeks later, with no complications.
Mr. Schreiner is what’s known in the health care world as a “medical tourist.” No longer covered under his former employer’s insurance and too young to qualify for Medicare, Mr. Schreiner has a private health insurance policy with a steep $10,000 deductible. Not wanting to spend all of that on the $14,000 his operation would have cost stateside, he paid only $3,900 in hospital and doctor’s bills in Costa Rica.

“I didn’t have to fork over my entire deductible,” Mr. Schreiner said. “What’s more, they bent over backwards there to take care of me — no waiting, a friendly staff, everyone spoke English.”
At least 85,000 Americans choose to travel abroad for medical procedures each year, according to a recent report by the consulting firm McKinsey & Company. Treatment includes dental implants, hip and knee replacements, heart valve replacements and bypass surgery. The cost of surgery performed overseas can be as little as 20 percent of the price of the same procedure in the United States, according to a recent report by the American Medical Association.

Medical tourism is expected to expand quickly in the coming years because of rising health care costs in the United States, increasing availability of international facilities with United States accreditation, and the fact that insurers and employers are beginning to embrace the practice.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, for example, has started a subsidiary company, Companion Global Healthcare, to offer medical tourism services to individuals and businesses. Hannaford supermarkets in Maine recently added an international option for hip replacements to its health care plan.

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Challenges With New Health Care Insurance

Written by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar

Posted by Connie Yee

WASHINGTON (AP) — Now for the hard part.
Even if the national credit card is maxed out and partisanship remains the rule for Washington's political tribes, President Barack Obama and Congress are plunging ahead with a health care overhaul.

This week, Obama will start the dialogue on how to increase coverage, restrain costs and improve quality.

Whether a bill can get through Congress and to Obama this year is uncertain. For half a century, the track record on health care has been one of missed opportunities, spectacular failures and hard-won incremental gains.

Obama plans to stress the need for major changes in his address to Congress on Tuesday, administration officials say. He quickly will follow up with a budget that includes a commitment to expand coverage for the uninsured. A White House summit on health care is being planned in coming weeks.

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Obama's new plans for health care

Posted by SooYeon(Pia),Shin

According to liberal think tank Center for American Progress’ Action Fund, about 4million Americans have lost their health insurance since the recession began. Also, they predicted that an estimated 14,000 people might be losing their health coverage every day. Furthermore, the report also states that at least half of those who lost their health insurance since the recession began still are uninsured. An estimated 46 million Americans did not have health insurance before the recession started.

When President Barack Obama campaigned, he promised to expand government health programs and provide people funds to help them afford coverage. Also, Obama “…proposed creating a public plan to compete with private health insurers and taking steps, such as putting more health records in digital form, to help reduce costs (Marcus, Bloomberg).”

Last week, President Obama signed a stimulus package which the U.S. will spend $150 billion on health care. This movement is very important for health care reform in the U.S., since there are so many Americans who do not have health coverage due to poor income. Some says the plan could bring two further outcomes: bringing new jobs in the health care field and other areas and lowering costs of health insurance.

http://www.bizjournals.com/albany/stories/2009/02/16/daily58.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aAjCUBMi5IlU&refer=home
http://www.dbtechno.com/health/2009/02/23/obama-stimulus-package-promises-150-billion-for-health-care/

Disruptive Innovation, Applied to Health Care

Posted by Lauren Cappelli

By JANET RAE-DUPREE
Published: January 31, 2009

THE health care system in America is on life support. It costs too much and saps economic vitality, achieves far too little return on investment and isn’t distributed equitably. As the Obama administration tries to diagnose and treat what ails the system, however, reformers shouldn’t be worried only about how to pay for it.

Instead, the country needs to innovate its way toward a new health care business model — one that reduces costs yet improves both quality and accessibility.

Two main causes of the system’s ills are century-old business models, for the general hospital and the physician’s practice, both of which are based on treating illness, not promoting wellness. Hospitals and doctors are paid by insurers and the government for the health care equivalent of piecework: hospitals profit from full beds and doctors profit from repeat visits. There is no financial incentive to keep patients healthy.

“The business models were all created decades ago, and acute disease drove those costs at the time,” says Steve Wunker, a senior partner at the consulting firm Innosight. “Most businesses in this industry are looking at their business model as entirely immutable. They’re looking for innovative offerings that fit this frozen model.”

Advances in technology and medical research are making it possible to envision an entirely new health care system that provides more individualized care without necessarily increasing costs, some health care experts say.

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A Relief in Health Care

By Shu Zheng

The stimulus plan that is working through Congress is not only a package of tax cut, but also a tool for rewriting the social contract with the poor, the uninsured, and the unemployed. The government plans to create a temporary new entitlement allowing workers getting unemployment checks to qualify for Medicaid, the health program for low-income people. In addition, the government would offer a subsidy to help laid-off workers retain the same health plans they had from their former employers. The economic recovery bill, as known, would expedite $127 billion over the next two and a half years to individuals and states for health care alone. It seems like a tremendous health assistant for the public, and it is undoubted that this plan will boost the economy for a short period of time, but it won’t eventually solve the problems that exist in the pool of health insurance.

The stimulus program is designated to assist the laid-offs and low-income population, however, the uprising costs of health cares and medications will eventually bring us to a deeper concern. Due to the downfall of sale affected by the current economy, small business owners have now been struggling to keep on paying high insurance premiums for themselves and their employees. As the economy turns worse, the proportion of small businesses that do not offer health insurance to workers has now increased significantly from 74% in 2007 to 85%. According to recent news, health insurance premiums will most likely double by 2016, and the average costs of employer-paid health insurance will jump from $11,381 to $24,291 in the future seven years. Facing the skyrocketing insurance prices, small business owners are looking to see what else they can cut in order to keep their businesses going. And often, they cut the costly health insurance.

So looking back on the stimulus package, even it seems to be a great relief for the public, especially the jobless, the rising costs of health care and medication will eventually come in the way. Providing the jobless population with insurance coverage will result in a positive outcome, however, in the long run, more actions are required in order to boost the insurance market.

Sources:

1. http://yourbiz.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/01/28/1763261.aspx

2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/28/AR2009012801750.html

3. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/us/28health.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=business

This SCHIP will sail, State Children's Health Insurance Program pushed by Obama

Posted by Jen Lynch

Obama hailed the 289 to 139 vote and nudged the Senate to act with the "same sense of urgency so that it can be one of the first measures I sign into law when I am president."

The president-elect vowed as a candidate to provide health coverage to every child, and the expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, known as SCHIP, is a major down payment toward meeting that goal. "In this moment of crisis, ensuring that every child in America has access to affordable health care is not just good economic policy, but a moral obligation we hold as parents and citizens," Obama said.

The House legislation would cost nearly $33 billion over 4 1/2 years and would be funded in part by a cigarette tax increase of 61 cents to $1 per pack. Bush vetoed two similar bills in 2007, objecting to the tax increase and the expansion of government health care. The Senate Finance Committee will take up a similar measure today, with floor action expected to begin next week.

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