America's New Refugees — Seeking Affordable Surgery Offshore
- 19 October 2006
- journal article
- Published by Massachusetts Medical Society in New England Journal of Medicine
- Vol. 355 (16) , 1637-1640
- https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmp068190
Abstract
The mainstream media have begun to highlight the plight of some new refugees: seriously ill Americans who receive treatment at advanced private hospitals in low-income countries. These patients are not “medical tourists” seeking low-cost aesthetic enhancement. They are middle-income Americans evading impoverishment by expensive, medically necessary operations, as health care services are increasingly included in international economic trade.1 At a recent Senate hearing, two stories were recounted that illustrated the physical and financial perils driving patients to pursue care abroad.2 In the first story, Howard Staab, a self-employed, uninsured, middle-aged carpenter from urban North Carolina who considered health insurance premiums . . .Keywords
This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit:
- How Health Insurance Inhibits Trade In Health CareHealth Affairs, 2006
- The “Dis-location” of U.S. Medicine — The Implications of Medical OutsourcingNew England Journal of Medicine, 2006