Your Medical Tourism Has Now Become a Work Requirement

Prices are so inexpensive for medical tourists these days, particularly for procedures where going to India might really make sense (seriously - who wouldn't want to save $93,000 on a coronary bypass if the difference is negligible in terms of quality of care - and in fact you'd probably do better in a top-3 Indian hospital than in a typical American suburban facility. It's easy to figure out where to go, too, thanks to lots of coverage of the phenomenon and to websites replete with links to help you plan your Malaysian procedure so that you have plenty of time to tour afterwards.

But it had to happen eventually - health insurance companies have run the numbers and they are beginning to get it that if they provide incentives to employees to get their surgical procedures outside the U.S., patients will go, and the cost to employers will be dramatically decreased. It's a weird form of health insurance, but it could be a huge market force in a very complex healthcare marketplace particularly where employees of small companies are concerned, and that's 2/3 of the U.S. population.