Unless you’re in India. Then you might want to rethink that.
In general, I would prefer a US doctor as well. However if Indian doctors cost 10% as American doctors, I would be willing to prescribe Indian doctors to treat a broad range of basic health issues. If I need brain surgery, then yes, I am going to Johns Hopkins. However, I don’t need Harvard Medical School graduates to tell me whether I am overweight or if I have high blood pressure.
Disclaimer: I did not read anything except for the last couple of posts, so sorry, if I am missing some other implicit point.
My ideal scenario would be to have an Indian doctor operate on me in a well-stocked American operating room.
My relative, who is a now an ENT surgeon in India, was stitching up cut throats in the last year of her med school when she was all of 21 years old. No shortage of business thanks to Mumbai gang wars. Then had to serve a mandatory year in Bumfuck, India, handling everything from delivering babies and snakebites to appendectomy.
On average, an Indian doctor is going to have a ton of experience compared to an American one. At least for fairly common conditions and surgical procedures.
Didn’t some insurance company start sending patients to India for routine surgeries? Wonder if they still do. Some private Indian hospitals are at least on par with American rural ones. And cheaper by far.
This is exactly what I meant. An Indian ethnic guy trained at the University of Whatever, Canada is good to go. I’d have zero concern with that. I don’t trust credentials from India. So much fraud, BS and other crap. I’m sure there are good schools there for medicine and very talented doctors, but I’m also sure there is absolutely hacksaw crap. Without having the ability to distinguish, I need to play it safe. Folks from western medical schools I know are generally up to snuff. My current family doc is Chinese, its not xenophobia.
For the record, this is the solution.
Up here we have nurse practitioners that do basic stuff (I’ve yet to actually see one in practice though) and pharmacists can now prescribe some things. I think this begins to address those basic issues that don’t really require a decade of schooling to sort out.
Then I would have to agree with Ohai that the only treatments that make sense in the USA from a financial perspective are those that are of a complex level. I think the insinuation that the training and experience level is a major factor would be slightly off base, the main deciding factor would probably be the existing medical infrastructure. I know from personal experience a guy flew from some shitty place in California all the way to Malaysia for a dental surgery and the total cost including flight tickets was cheaper than if he had stayed in the USA. This is laughably bizarre.
In any case his original statement indicating his preferance based on location indicates a complete lack of awareness of what is actually happening on the ground which is not surprising given the general gist of his other posts. The burgeoning private medical industry in China / India is filled with doctors who were practicing in various reigons - Middle East, Europe, North America during the 80’s and 90’s and have been lured home by new money.
A cause for greater concern would be having a Arizona State Univ grad cut you open.
I guess you haven’t been to the US, a lot of doctors are educated in places like India. Recently when a relative visited the hospital (a great hospital btw, no hacksaw), one doctor was trained in Italy, the other in Ethiopia, and the third in the Philipines. In either case, foreign doctors have to pass the same rigorous standards as US doctors to practice here, usually its harder for them to pass these tests as they’ve been out of school longer.
Rather than xenophobic, you just seem to be very sheltered.
Furthermore, I wouldn’t necessarily trust a doctor from a US school over India, as I know some of the mediocre kids who ended up in medical school. Medicine in India is way more competitive.
^ Those educated outside the US need to prove their qualifications to get licensed in the US. Those guys doing the licensing know their stuff, they can be trusted. Random Indian doc in India? Who knows.
I’d go to an Indian doctor in India to treat explosive diarrhea.
More anecdotal evidence:
The company I work for has around 50 employees and we had a very good BCBS PPO plan. It is a relatively young workforce with lots of younger traders and analysts. Our premiums increased by 75% and now we have a crappy Humana plan instead. Every doctor I’ve visited says they hate humana.
^ Bam! Obamacare.
^No, that’s not the fault of Obamacare. With Obamacare, if you like your plan, you can keep your plan. That’s exactly what the President said, and he would never lie.
Just because the insurance companies raised their premiums doesn’t mean that Obamacare is the reason. Insurance premiums were going up steadily before OBC.
Q: “Why are umbrellas $10 today, when they were $5 yesterday??”
A: “It’s raining. It’s not my fault. I had no choice.”
I was just being cheeky.
You should get those cheeks looked at. You know how healthcare is these days. 
there is a ridiculous amount of evidence and real stories that Obamacare has single handily killed off thousands of plans people liked and were happy with.
It’s safe to say Obamacare played a nice role giving Republicans the Senate. The people have spoken.
The #1 thing Obamacare has going for it is the name. Try saying McCaincare, Bushcare or Eisenhowercare. It just doesn’t roll of the tongue the same way. Obamacare, yeah
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STL and TTM: I’m glad you’re both getting your children the treatments they need and they’re well.
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How does the forum feel about the carribean educated doctors? I know this is the safety school for all the people wanting to study medicine at state u. I can’t say I’ve ever been treated by one, but I know it’s a large supplier of doctors.
My understanding is that BCBS is no longer able to price our premiums based on our company’s demographics. That would be the fault of new laws.