Medical Bills. Photo by urban bohemian/Flickr.
Great Financial News for Health Insurers: Bad News for Patients and The Medical Professions
(PRWEB) 24 April 2012
The author of The American Medical Money Machine, James R. Goldberg, has issued a new website that describes, “how plans have been laid by the American insurance and hospital industries, to export American insured patients for less expensive foreign care. These plans have been underway for nearly 30 years. Both Medicare and private health insurers will pay US Joint Commission accredited hospitals. The consequences have devastating implications.”
Author Goldberg is a political activist in the field of healthcare.
His original inspiration to dig deeply into the field of Medical Tourism began in 2006 began with the suspicious circumstances surrounding the untimely death of his only child at Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand. Bumrungrad is the epicenter for Medical Tourism.
Since then Goldberg has consulted with the Senate Finance Committee which oversees Medicare, chaired by Senators Grassley and Baccus.
The book, which explores what Goldberg refers to as, “the nefarious circumstances of his son’s death, goes way beyond to expose a concerted effort of the US healthcare industry to dominate healthcare on a global basis.”
Goldberg said, “The plans for this have been underway for the last 30 years in which the Joint Commission, of Oakbrook, Illinois have been selling a high status accreditation with a US look alike logo to foreign hospitals which appear to suggest that these foreign accredited hospitals are endorsed by the US Government: they are not.”
Goldberg went on to say, “The impact that the institutionally supported movement, some have packaged as Medical Tourism will have a major impact on Doctors, Nurses and, most importantly, patients.”
“As US baby boomers hit older age, medical problems and access to care will become a major issue as our resources shrink as the demand for care increases,” said author Goldberg.
“By outsourcing healthcare to far cheaper locations the US medical industry stands to make a bonanza at the expense of patients and their safety,” Goldberg added.
As insurance companies add foreign hospitals to their networks, the medical insurance industry will continue to increase their premiums, place more financial burden on patients and continue the trend to lower reimbursement to doctors: the result being that doctors are leaving medicine and the quality of care in the US will continue to drop while patients pay higher deductibles and co-pays. The money to be made by shipping patients overseas is staggering.
Further, Goldberg said, “Fewer people are choosing to go into medicine as major corporate interests have taken over near total control of medical services: they have done so in collusion and with the support of the US Government as Medicare and Medicaid become disemboweled.”
Goldberg has written a book that takes square aim at the degradation of American Medicine and its domination by corporate cartels.
The American Medical Money Machine: The Destruction of Healthcare in America and The Rise of Medical Tourism is available through Amazon in Paperback and Kindle.
Additional Press Releases addressing the impact on Human Resources, Doctors, Travel Agents, Patient Safety Groups, Nurses, Trial Lawyers, The Pharmaceutical Industry, Foreign Doctors and Medical Systems are planned in the coming months.
The Fall of US Medicine and The Rise of Medical Tourism
These and many other topics which take serious issue with Medical Tourism are examined in great detail in The American Medical Money Machine.
Goldberg said that, “the consequences of corporate medicine have broad impact and hidden implications on a world wide basis. The invasion of big business in medicine is now going global!”
Goldberg ended his comments by saying that his 450-page non-fiction book details information little known to the vast majority of Americans and exposes the dangers of how travel agents, medical insurance companies and hospital corporations have entered the nefarious world of Medical Tourism.
The US does not participate in any treaties that provide protection for American citizens who may be hurt or killed overseas while seeking health care.
Initially, foreign health care was limited to the “accidental” tourist. Now, the Joint Commission, endowed by Congress in 1965 to accredit hospitals in the US in order that they be deemed worthy of receiving Medicare, are institutionalizing foreign care by extending hospital networks to accreditation of foreign hospitals.
In fact, they were NEVER given the power to do so by Congress which limited their accreditation powers to the US and its territories. However the Joint Commission is now providing “look alike” accreditation to hospitals overseas. “When I say look alike,” Goldberg explains, “I mean the Joint Commission makes it appear through the misleading use of their logo, that foreign hospitals are being accredited on par with US hospitals.” This is deceptive and fraudulent, the author believes.
Further, since these foreign hospitals are receiving Joint Commission accreditation, American insurance companies AND Medicare will pay them for their services.
Since the US has no jurisdiction abroad, a patient who may be injured or killed, is left to the local laws of the land of the medical facility in which they have been harmed.
Essentially means, they are OUT OF LUCK.
The US Government will do nothing to help injured Americans and in countries like Australia, many injured patients are returning to have the problems sustained abroad fixed! This places enormous new burdens on the hospitals in Australia and the same situation promises to become globalized.
In the US most doctors will NOT touch a patient who has been harmed elsewhere: often through procedures which are not permitted in the US.
Since the American insurance cartel is selling policies for offshore care… and this will continue to proliferate… interesting and untested legal questions arise.
The book contains detailed discussions which trial lawyers, especially those involved in personal injuries, must understand. This previously esoteric area: Medical Tourism, holds enormous consequences for jurisprudence in the US. “Many cases will be brought which will go to high Courts, eventually, I predict, even the Supreme Court,” Goldberg believes.
The companies who are promoting foreign care do so in the US and some are actually US companies who are selling and or administering insurance policies for foreign care. What is their responsibility in the event of a mishap. What about follow up once a patient returns home?
“In the case of my son, he was murdered at Bumrungrad Hospital, I am informed and believed, for his organs. What are the legal ramifications for American citizens who receive organ transplants who return home and become ill? Who is responsible?” he asks.
The questions surrounding the fall of US medicine and the rise of Medical Tourism are profound and will become big business as the hundreds of US accredited foreign hospitals continues to expand.
