Let’s not speculate on motive until we know more. All we know about the Fort Hood Shooting is that 12 are dead (as of now). Initial reports indicated there were multiple shooters, but only one has been identified, Army Major Malike Nadal Hasan, who is dead. Two other soldiers are suspects. Terrible news.
Update: McClatchy Newspapers reports the shooter may still be alive.
Judy Dugan writes in the Los Angeles Times that foreign hospitals and medical centers are wooing U.S. insurance companies and major employers. The goal? To make “medical tourism” a regular part of America’s market-driven health care system.
Right now, medical tourism is an individual choice. People who have been dumped out of the U.S. health care system but who have the money to travel can get their hip replacements and cancer treatments in another country at the fraction of the cost.
But unless Congress gets its act together and takes the insurance industry into hand, soon “American workers may find themselves facing ‘incentives’ for overseas surgery that border on coercion,” says Dugan.
For insurers and employers looking at a $45,000 hip replacement in the U.S., the lure of a $5,400 hip replacement in India — even with $10,000 or $12,000 in travel and lodging costs added on — is hard to resist. So what if there’s a lack of public, comparative data on outcomes, complications and long-term recovery?
Doctors in other countries make a fraction of what U.S. doctors do. U.S. physicians may find themselves in the same fix as U.S. garment workers, competing with workers in the Third World. Patients also may have to sign waivers that free their foreign health care providers from any liability for error or malpractice.
Here are a few early indicators of insurer interest: The Blue Cross Blue Shield website touts “Blue Cross’ Companion Global Healthcare,” a wraparound travel planner and network of overseas providers, selling to individuals and to employers in South Carolina. In California, Blue Shield and HealthNet offer plans for employers of Mexican immigrants that cover treatment in Mexico. And United Health Group, the parent of PacifiCare, sent a speaker to the medical tourism conference to advise on how to get employers to include overseas surgery in health plan networks.
Conservatives want to de-subsidize health care and allow the magical free market to determine cost and delivery. Outsourcing overseas is a logical consequence.
Update: However, as Nicholas Kristof points out — we may get better care by going overseas. Our health care system, in spite of being the best health care system in the world, isn’t that great.