MEXICAN MEDICAL TOURISM FOR CALIFORNIANS?

The primary reason Californians head to Mexico for health treatment is to escape the state's expensive regulatory burden on health facilities,..

According to new research by Steven P. Wallace of the University of California, Los Angeles, almost a million Californian residents crossed the border into Mexico for treatment in 2004. The primary reason was to escape California's expensive regulatory burden on health facilities:

• California hospitals shift the costs of treating Medicare and Medicaid patients (for whom government reimbursement does not cover costs) to private insurers.
• Professor Daniel Kessler of Stanford University figures that premiums for private health insurance would be about 11 percent lower without this cost shift -- a hidden tax that private insurers can avoid by leaving the state.

California hospitals also suffer under laws that drive up their costs:

• For example, seismic retrofitting and nurse-patient ratios, which Mexican hospitals do not.
• California hospitals also have to deal with a militant union, the California Nurses Association, whose members parade in front of the Capitol by the hundreds in support of more government interference in health care, in the quest for "universal" coverage.

The political momentum in California, and the nation, will make our hospitals more accountable to government but less accountable to all patients. That will give Californians more reason to head south. In years to come, be prepared to have a margarita with your medical procedure...

READ MORE

image MAP = CA exodus = cali mny immig -