With health care costs rising unchecked and the economy putting companies and employees into an increasing bind one surprising trend has caught on in the United States.  Companies are now paying employees to travel abroad for surgeries in countries where medical costs are contained by the government. 

This is a perfect example of everything that is wrong with the American economic model.  We outsource anything and everything in the United States if it means we can save a few pennies rather than have to actually deal with the cost increases ourselves. Years ago companies began outsourcing manufacturing and productive industry because workers overseas demanded less pay and cost less to maintain.  In many cases the companies could avoid the pesky details of providing benefits and pensions. 

Now, the trend seems to have taken hold in practical medicine as well.  Rather than deal with the artificially inflated costs of health insurance in the United States, some companies are paying employees to take “medical vacations” to another country where procedures are cheaper. 

According to CNNMoney.com, one company sent a husband and wife on an all-expenses-paid vacation to Panama for two weeks as part of their “travel surgery” arrangement and still ended up saving 80 percent on what would have been a $50,000 procedure in the United States. 

If an employee is concerned about the medical accreditation of a center in Panama or India – where costs can be on average 80 percent lower – they could go to a developed country and still save money.  Even after paying for airfare and hotels, and dealing with the exchange rate for dollars, a company can save 25 percent or more by sending employees to the United Kingdom for surgeries. 

The immediate effect of medical outsourcing is that companies save money and employees are still able to get their procedures completed. The side-effects are that malpractice and liability rules become a minefield should something go wrong, and an American hospital or clinic loses business.  In the case shown by CNNMoney.com a procedure was completed in Panama for $10,000 when it would have cost $50,000 in the United States.  Unfortunately that means an American hospital just lost out on a $50,000 opportunity – likely equivalent to a full annual salary of some hospital administrative employee. 

There is really no difference between buying a foreign car and buying a foreign medical procedure.  In the end the money goes elsewhere never to return, meaning somewhere in the American economy money that could have paid a salary now leads to a lay-off. 

When the Obama administration caved to its opposition on health care reform and allowed insurance lobbyists to write the “reform” bill, it included something called an “individual mandate.”  This made it mandatory for every American to have health coverage, and gave employers the first line of responsibility. 

As a result, many employers that would have simply denied coverage to their workers are now finding novel and inventive ways to get around the system.   

All of this could, and should, have been avoided if the government had simply adopted a public option system in which it took over coverage of the uninsured in a captive market where it could control costs.  Instead, the administration caved under political pressure and went against the overwhelming public will.  It dropped the popular public option and helped to create a system in which yet another American industry could be outsourced. 

Making matters worse, we have always been told that health care was one of the two things – next to government work – that could never be outsourced.  As it turns out, the experts were wrong.  Thanks to massive cost increases that far out-paced inflation or economic growth, it is now cheaper to fly 10 hours first class and stay for two weeks in a fine hotel overseas than pay an American hospital to perform some surgeries.

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