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"With rising healthcare and insurance costs, many Americans simply do without either. This is all well and good until a serious medical need comes along. Taking clues from corporations who outsource labor,&amp;#160; US citizens are finding help abroad.  The world is full of fine surgeons and medical practitioners and anyone who has been at the mercy of an HMO knows that the service doesn&amp;#8217;t mean that you&amp;#8217;ll have a truly &amp;#8216;personal&amp;#8217; physician and care. Traveling to meet health care needs without losing everything you own is a practical, viable, even brilliant alternative. According to &amp;lt;a href=&amp;quot;http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/medical-outsourcing-growing-in-india/2007-01-08&amp;quot;&amp;gt;FierceHealthcare&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;: &amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Many upper/middle class and poor Americans can not afford a $250,000 heart surgery but would be more likely to afford a $23,000 heart procedure. The same goes for a $40,000 hip or knee replacement but are likely to afford a $7,500 hip or knee replacement. Another big area of treatment that AMO could assist in is with the 14 people that die every day because they did not receive an organ transplant.&amp;quot; &amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt; Even people with insurance may opt for travel abroad since their insurance co-pay often exceeds the full cost of procedures performed outside of the US. &amp;lt;a href=&amp;quot;http://www.medfund-usa.com/medical_getaways.html&amp;quot;&amp;gt;MedFund-USA&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt; is among the many medical tourism services that have assistance for those without resources."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/medical-tourism-rising-medical-costs-patients-heath-care-vacations>