While Amanda and I were living in Mexico we went to a dentist at a large private hospital. It is a hospital that specializes in medical tourism and was a mind-bending experience.
Instead of facing cold indifference and long-waits like you do at a hospital in Canada, you were greeted at the entrance and treated like a guest at a five-star hotel.
We were just there to visit a doctor, but you could find every service you would expect from a world-class hospital at incredibly affordable prices.
We like to think of the US, Canada, and Europe as having the best healthcare on earth, but over the past few decades in places like Mexico and Thailand private tourist focused healthcare has rapidly caught up. Now you can get better services at a fraction of the price (for the US) or the wait time (for Canada). In fact, these private tourist hospitals are some of the only free-market health care that exists in the world.
In Canada, the U.S., Europe, and the rest of the first world, healthcare has been regulated into stasis. Unions, monopolies, credentialism, and drug administrations slow down innovation, reduce competition, and massively increase costs.
While technology rapidly advances, the price and quality of health care lag behind in the most developed countries in the world. Only on the international scene do hospitals have to actually compete with each other and provide great experiences to their patients.
From 20 years ago to today medical tourism has gone from non-existent to relatively popular for minor issues. Over the next 20 years, if nothing changes at home, traveling out of your home country may be the only way to get first class, modern, and affordable healthcare.
Leave a Reply