Union Disrupts Plan to Send Workers to India for Cheaper Medical Care

[Rose Siding]

A few weeks ago, Carl Garrett, a 60-year-old North Carolina resident, was packing his bags to fly to New Delhi and check into the plush Indraprastha Apollo Hospital to have his gall bladder removed and the painful muscles in his left shoulder repaired. Mr. Garrett was to be a test case, the first company-sponsored worker in the United States to receive medical treatment in low-cost India.
...
The union, the United Steelworkers, stepped in after it heard about Mr. Garrett’s plans, saying it deplored a “shocking new approach” of sending workers to low-cost countries as a way to cut health care costs. Its officials insisted that Mr. Garrett be offered a health care option within the United States.

“No U.S. citizen should be exposed to the risks involved in traveling internationally for health care services,” Leo W. Gerard, the president of the union, said in a recent letter to the Senate and House committees that oversee health care. He expressed his concern about the willingness of employers to offer incentives to employees to go overseas.

Mr. Garrett, who works for Blue Ridge Paper Products in Canton, N.C., had volunteered to get his treatments in India in return for a share in the company’s savings. Blue Ridge now says it will find Mr. Garrett a treatment alternative in the United States and will offer the overseas option only to its salaried employees.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/business/worldbusiness/11health.html?ex=1161230400&en=7596f44e180c52a2&ei=5070&emc=eta1

[mcscajun]

1. Corporations ready to cut medical costs on the backs (*literally*)

of their employees. Here's why the costs in India are so low:

...cross-border medical liability in countries like India could prove to be a major hurdle, the experts say. In the case of Mr. Garrett, Blue Ridge Paper asked him to sign a release saying that he was “on his own as far as medical liability,” said Bonnie Blackley, the benefits director at Blue Ridge.

Tom Keesling, president of IndUShealth, said “the Indian physician and hospital would be directly responsible for any malpractice.”

Zubin Daruwalla, health care analyst at the consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, said there was no uniform code in India on what could be considered medical negligence and what compensation ought to be paid. “Compared with the huge payouts in the United States, Indian courts award small amounts,” Mr. Daruwalla said.

They tried to buy off Mr. Garrett and cut him loose liability-wise should anything go wrong. Bless his union for putting a halt to it. Yes, he would have "shared in the savings" but at what risk? At what cost to setting precedent? One day it's voluntary with a "buyout", and later on, it could become the only option for many, setting up yet another class division in healthcare.

But United Steelworkers, the largest industrial union in North America with over 850,000 members, said it would fight any effort by American companies to send employees abroad for treatments. “We are confident that we are in a position to block any employees being exported to India, Thailand or Mexico,” said Stan Johnson, a spokesman. “The ailing American health care system cannot be cured by sending patients abroad.”

They're right! The ailing American health care system cannot be cured by sending patients abroad, by putting yet more America health care workers out of jobs, by putting American patients at risk, and hardship, to obtain medical care. Anyone Really Want to get on a long, long plane ride to India to get surgery? I sure don't. It would be different if someone needed critical surgery that could only be done in a certain country; for that, you do what you have to do. When there are no critical needs and competent surgeons are at home, then hell, I'm not going anywhere!
I wouldn't even care to take that long a flight for tourism.