U.S. hospitals send patients south of the border

I’m usually reading complaints about how the Mexican elite (usually said as the “white, Spanish elite”) export their poor to the U.S. Here, it sounds like the U.S. — rather than provide for their citizens at home — is exporting their poor to Mexico, and trying to turn a profit at the same time.

Posted on General Health News:

Two North Texas-based hospital chains, Christus Health of Irving and International Hospital Corp. of Dallas, are tapping into a need and an opportunity by providing in their hospitals in Mexico what their executives say are the best of both worlds – U.S.-quality health care and relatively low Mexican prices.

“Our goal is to have the safest hospitals in the international market,” said Cliff Orme, CEO of International Hospital Corp. “We’re implementing U.S. standards into these hospitals so you won’t notice the difference going to a hospital in Dallas than one in a Latin American country.”

Some experts, including Peter Maddox of Christus Health, see Mexico as an answer to the complex question of how to treat aging and underinsured Americans at a time when the retirement of baby boomers will further tax the U.S. health care system. An estimated 43 million Americans, about 15 percent of the population, are uninsured, according to a Census Bureau study.

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Although care in Mexico may not be as inexpensive as care in some Asian nations, the proximity to the U.S. is a big advantage to patients. Some U.S. companies are now sending employees to Mexico for their annual checkups.

Underscoring the trend, Mexican state governments are spending money to refurbish communities near these hospitals, hoping visiting patients will stay there while receiving medical care or even move there permanently.

David Warner, a health researcher at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, said the hospitals run by U.S. companies are primarily for Mexicans, but they also hope to attract medical tourism, Americans without insurance and Mexicans living in the U.S. “And they’d like to get some U.S. insurers to cover them,” he added.

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A bill in the Texas Legislature sponsored this year by Senator Eddie Lucio, a Democrat, would have allowed U.S.-based insurers to cover health services in Mexico with the goal of making policies affordable for uninsured groups like the working poor. There was also a House version of the bill.

Honestly, I don’t see a particularly “complicated question” involved in providing medical care. Mexico — and every where else — just pays doctors and nurses and orderlies to do their job. If they want to earn extra money, they do private care.