Any doctors or healthcare professionals out there who can confirm or deny
some of the statistics given in this article???? The numbers given, if
accurate, are certainly an indictment against the US medical system. Not
mentioned but an interesting and important question is: Who is able to flee
to other countries for healthcare? Certainly not the poor, just as the poor
could not evacuate New Orleans when Katrina hit.
Peace, hope, justice for ALL
Joan
======================================================


Bolen Report - January 7, 2006
http://www.bolenreport.net

Americans Flee to India, and Elsewhere, for Better Health Care...

by Tim Bolen
Consumer Advocate

According to the newspaper "Times of India," 150,000 people, mostly from the
United States, went to India last year for Medical care. Called "medical
tourism" the numbers are growing at 15% per annum and by 2012, that "medical
tourism" is expected to generate $2.3 billion annually in India. As one
representative of an Indian Hospital, Anne Marie Moncure, MD, of
Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, says, "Every year, 98,000 patients die in US
hospitals due to medical negligence and three to four times that number are
left permanently-disabled."

The United States Medical Care system, rated a poor seventy-second (72nd),
worldwide, has been teetering on the brink of destruction for years now.
Greed, malfeasance, misfeasance, grand corruption, murderous intent, and a
self-centeredness unequaled in history has led the system to the abyss. The
system, the most expensive in the world, IS THE NUMBER ONE KILLER OF
AMERICANS. Above heart disease, cancer and stroke, the medical system,
itself, is responsible for the unnecessary deaths of 783,936 Americans EVERY
YEAR. There are no estimates of how many are damaged or disabled by it.

But, what we do know is who's responsible for this atrocity. There are five
culprits (1) the American Health Insurance Industry, (2) "Big Pharma," (3)
the US medical regulatory system - the US FDA and the individual State
licensing boards that aren't doing their jobs, (4) The "quackbuster"
operation run by a New York ad agency, and (5) US Network television. I'll
explain below in a minute.

More, it's not just India that is providing better, safer, cost-effective
healthcare for Americans. Mexico, for instance, draws huge numbers of
Americans across the common border, who not only buy cheaper, safer, medical
care, but they buy first-rate dentistry at a fraction of the cost in the US,
and they buy pharmaceuticals by the bag full at a tenth of the price of the
same US offering. The border clinics offer workable solutions to cancer,
for instance, that are almost completely outlawed in the US - yet have
awesome success rates.

In the Northern States, Canada offers medications at less than half the
- price an easy drive, and lunch at a nice place. Europe and Asia, also,
blatantly offer Americans solutions to cancer and other health issues not
found in the US due to the restrictive policies of the US FDA.

But last, and MOST IMPORTANT, is the US "underground medicine" system. It's
extensive. As far as Americans "fleeing elsewhere" for better medical care,
I'd guess this one outstrips all of the others combined.

Underground medicine?

To read the entire article, and acess the interesting links, click on the
URL below:

http://www.bolenreport.net

Tim Bolen - Consumer Advocate