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Health Care: Is it Driving US Citizens to Move Overseas?  I spoke with a real estate agent yesterday to see whether we have any realistic prospect of selling our house in this economy. I mentioned to her that we would be leaving the area, so of course she wanted to know our plans. “We can’t afford to retire here,” I explained, “so we’re looking at moving south of the border. We’re considering Mexico, Panama or Ecuador.” There was a silence at the other end of the phone line. “Oh,” she said, “you’re about the fourth or fifth person who’s told me that in the last couple of months.” Then today, I watched various news and comments on the health care debate in Congress. It is a sad fact that the US is the only Western democracy which does not provide health care for all its people. Alan Grayson summarized the Republicans’ health care reform plan – “Don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die fast.”
Michael Moore, traveling the country speaking and giving interviews as his new documentary launches, refers to our health care system as “cruel.” Statistics indicate the biggest reason for personal bankruptcies and home foreclosures in this country is the cost of health care. All of which made me start wondering … is our broken health care system and its cost driving US citizens to leave the US and move overseas?
Medical Tourism Google the phrase “medical tourism,” and you’ll get over 28 million hits. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, September 30, 2009,
M.P. McQueen writes that a “small but growing number” of insurers and employers are offering Americans the option to seek medical treatment abroad. According to the article, open-heart surgery, costing at least $100,000 here, can cost as little as $8,500 in India.
Some 15 or so years ago, billionaire Richard M. DeVos, cofounder of Amway Corp., made headlines in the British press for his personal medical tourism. After being turned down for a heart replacement here because of his age, he traveled to Europe. According to news reports at the time, he “donated” about $50,000 to a hospital in England, where he then received a heart transplant at no charge, thanks to the British National Health system. DeVos is listed at #117 in Forbes list of world billionaires. Known for his extreme right-wing conservatism which would deny universal coverage to average Americans, DeVos apparently has no compunction about taking advantage of taxpayer subsidies for his health care when it suits him, just as he has no compunction about having taxpayers foot the bill for the new arena for his Orlando Magic basketball team. Americans Abroad Estimates place about 6.6 million Americans living abroad, with that number growing rapidly. Richard C. Morais, writing for Forbes.com, reports on a “new lobbying effort” by US retirees living in Mexico to expand Medicare to cover Americans in Mexico. According to Morais, Paul Crist, a former aide to Sen. Sarbanes now living in Puerto Vallarta, has formed an organization to lobby to get Medicare accepted there.
According to the AMMAC (Americans for Medicare in Mexico) website, the choice for many to move to Mexico is
(As a side note, I would like to point out that to some of us planning to retire abroad, $35,000 annually is a large budget. An average Social Security check for a worker retiring in 2009 is about $1,500, resulting in an annual income of only $18,000.)
The same survey found that 63% of Americans retired in Mexico had paid into the Medicare system for 31 years or more.
A December, 2008 article in International Living, a well-known purveyor of information for those seeking an overseas life, states:
In fact, the organization regularly assesses the cost and quality of health care in all of its discussions of any given country. So do major living abroad resources, like Transitions Abroad, Escape Artist, and others.
The AARO (Association of Americans Resident Overseas) has requested its members to submit their perspectives on health care in the countries they live in. You can see a few of them. Trackback(0)
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I have heard the concerns and opinions from expats from all walk of life, from the super wealthy to those with modest retirement income, and they all appear to value whatever health coverage is available to them in the various cost brackets.
Mind you, the range is not that wide. From absolutely free if you can prove indigence, to $30 to $60 in the regular HMO system, to about $150 per month at the top of the health insurance market. Depending on age and existing conditions, you may also contract extra U.S. surgery insurance for up to $500,000, plus travel insurance and funeral service insurance, all included in that monthly fee.
Things get less inexpensive beyond the age of 60, especially with the premium insurers. There is a surcharge for each year over 60 up to 65, and often comprehensive medical examinations and admission into the system at the discretion of a hospital board. Also, sign up fees of a few thousand dollars may apply if you are between 60 and 65.
The mid-market HMOs often even dispense with a general checkup as precondition for enrollment, however, and by law are forced to admit everyone, regardless of age. Once in, there are usually no deductibles and costly surgeries are performed for just the few dollars paid in monthly premiums.
Should you require non-covered surgery or hospitalization, the bill will not be as financially crippling either. A recent two week hospitalization with batteries of treatments, tests, curations, consults with several different specialits, etc. for an American friend, paid out of pocket at the most expensive hospital, with private, hotel-like room, totalled $72,000. Although the amount buys you a condo in Uruguay, in the U.S. that bill would no doubt have been in the hundreds of thousands.