America's New Refugees — Seeking Affordable Surgery Offshore

Abstract

The mainstream media have begun to highlight the plight of some new refugees: seriously ill Americans who receive treatment at advanced private hospitals in low-income countries. These patients are not “medical tourists” seeking low-cost aesthetic enhancement. They are middle-income Americans evading impoverishment by expensive, medically necessary operations, as health care services are increasingly included in international economic trade.1 At a recent Senate hearing, two stories were recounted that illustrated the physical and financial perils driving patients to pursue care abroad.2 In the first story, Howard Staab, a self-employed, uninsured, middle-aged carpenter from urban North Carolina who considered health insurance premiums . . .