Surgery now being outsourced to India as well

Post #180,239 by bluke 10/21/04 6:36:34 AM Reply	Surgery now being outsourced to India as well [link\|http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49743-2004Oct20.html\|Surgeries, Side Trips for 'Medical Tourists'] "Three months ago, Howard Staab learned that he suffered from a life-threatening heart condition and would have to undergo surgery at a cost of up to $200,000 -- an impossible sum for the 53-year-old carpenter from Durham, N.C., who has no health insurance. So he outsourced the job to India. Taking his cue from cost-cutting U.S. businesses, Staab last month flew about 7,500 miles to the Indian capital, where doctors at the Escorts Heart Institute & Research Centre -- a sleek aluminum-colored building across the street from a bicycle-rickshaw stand -- replaced his balky heart valve with one harvested from a pig. Total bill: about $10,000, including round-trip airfare and a planned side trip to the Taj Mahal."
Post #180,240 by jbrabeck 10/21/04 8:54:33 AM Reply	And his choices were? 1. Stay home and die 2. Stay home, go bankrupt, and live 3. See the world and live. Without going into politics and health care reform and all other matters which he had no control over, I'd have done the same. A good friend will come and bail you out of jail ... but, a true friend will be sitting next to you saying, "Damn...that was fun!"
Post #180,265 by bluke 10/21/04 12:14:29 PM Reply	I wasn't making a value judgement The point was to show how even things that you would not think would be outsourced are being outsourced.
Post #180,269 by Another Scott 10/21/04 12:25:12 PM Reply	Along those lines... I had thought for a long time that the best way to protect yourself from outside competition was to be in a service job that required hands-on work. E.g., Someone in Bangalore isn't suddenly going to be repairing the transmission on your car. A retired Canadian fellow I was talking with a week or so ago nixed that simple idea. He said that workers from Central America were being imported into Canadian cities (I think he specifically mentioned Toronto) to do construction work. The natural result was to drive down wages for Canadian construction workers. If I had thought about the problem a little more, I would have realized that there's no inherently low-wage-competition proof profession. Either the work can move to a low-wage country, or the low-wage workers can be imported. There will be a lot of short and medium-term pain for a lot of people as a result. :-( Cheers, Scott.
Post #180,337 by daemon 10/21/04 7:05:04 PM Reply	Around here we have the dental trip round trip airfare, luxery hotel for a week in beautiful costa rica and get yer caps for much kess than the USA. regards daemon

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