Obama glare on health tourism

President Barack Obama today pushed for affordable health care in the US amid concerns about spiralling costs, saying he would not like Americans to travel to countries like India or Mexico for cheaper treatment.

“My preference would be that you don’t have to travel to India or Mexico to get cheap health care. I’d like you to be able to get it right here in the United States of America, that’s high quality,” Obama said amid applause at a community college in Virginia.

In response to a question from the audience on increased health care costs in the US, Obama said: “Before we went on the path of ‘you can go somewhere else to get your health care’, let’s work to see if we can reduce the costs of health care here in the United States of America. That’s going to make a big difference.”

India has emerged as a major destination for medical tourism, drawing thousands of patients from West Asia, Africa as well as the UK and North America who opt for treatment, usually surgical procedures, in India’s private-sector hospitals.“But no one travels for reasons of (health care) costs alone,” said Anupam Sibal, medical director of Apollo Indraprastha Hospital, New Delhi. “It is the relatively low costs coupled with high quality care.”

A paper circulated by the Confederation of Indian Industry estimates that the medical tourism market is expected to touch $2 billion by 2012 — with the number of foreign patients running into tens of thousands each year.

Doctors in India say a significant proportion of patients from the US who seek treatment in Indian hospitals appear to be those who do not have medical insurance. “We are fulfilling a need of people who are out of the health care net in the US,” said Naresh Trehan, chairperson of Medanta, the Medicity, a private hospital in Gurgaon. “Patients come to India because we can provide them outcomes as good or better than in the US at lower costs.”

Patients from the US have turned to India for cardiac surgery, orthopaedic procedures such as knee-joint operations, neurosurgery as well as dental treatment, doctors with hospitals that have received such patients said.A cardiac bypass surgery in the US might cost up to $40,000, but a patient who opts to get the procedure done in India might have to pay only $10,000 — for the surgery, travel and stay.

In his response, Obama said the US needs to change how its health care system works. “One of the things that we want to do as part of our health care reform package is let’s start doing a better job of negotiating better prices for prescription drugs here in the United States, so that you don’t feel like you’re getting cheated because you’re paying 30 per cent or 20 per cent more than prescription drugs in Canada or Mexico.”

“Why should drugs that are invented here in the United States end up being more expensive (here) than in another country?” Obama asked.“Well, the reason is, because drug companies can get away with it here, and they can’t get away with it there, and we should change some of those systems to make it cheaper for everybody here.”

India’s generic drug manufacturers have long been seen as a major source of inexpensive medicines. While the generic industry has thrived in India since the 1980s, over the past decade, it has also supplied drugs to other countries, including the US.

Source = telegraphindia