Cost of Living Ranking by Country

schweiz said:
I know from personal experience a lot of people go to Europe for medical care. Much cheaper.
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Plus it is actually possible in Europe to get medical care without health insurance while letting others pay for it... not supporting that fact, but remember when living in France reading about local hospitals suffering large unpaid bills from overseas patients who would head back home and forget about their debt. Not sure whether they now ask for guarantees before treatments outside the emergency ward.
 
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Overnight said:
I want you to pay very close attention to something...

"...The Medical Tourism Association® has three tenets: Transparency in Quality and Pricing, Communication and Education..."

See the little ® symbol there? They went through the trouble of registering their name. Why would they choose to do that? For money, perhaps?

And when you go to another country to get a $100K operation for 50 bux, who exactly is paying for it? How does a non-citizen of a country get zero-cost health care? Who pays for it?
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I would pay full price if it was necessary. If, god forbid, I had a condition requiring surgery in the next ten months I'd spend 5 months researching where to get it done as well as double doing the diagnosis.
 
Overnight said:
See the little ® symbol there? They went through the trouble of registering their name. Why would they choose to do that? For money, perhaps?
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Missed this earlier. Obviously this is a form of arbitrage. So obviously people will make use of it. If more people did the math in the US (coincidentally the US public education keeps declining in that subject), and did what I'm suggesting, the medical companies would have to adapt. But they don't, so I'll have to combine future business trips with medical procedures. Darn.
 
I know several people who have gone to Costa Rica for dental work. Dental is not the same as other types of surgery but in a few case the people saved about $50,000 on a full mouth fix. If you need lots of dental check out Costa Rican Dental www.costaricandental.com
 
nooby_mcnoob said:
I've lived in a few countries and Canada is by far the cheapeast if you exclude peasant fees (taxes). Including peasant fees, which total about 60% of every dollar spent, Canada is garbage. Have a good accountant, hide your money well.

The other countries at the top are "expensive" because they have no income tax, so sales taxes are high (as well as the general problem with getting supplies to their location). At my daughter's elite school, a disproportionate amount of people come from de islands (all white) because the mofos don't pay any taxes and so they have 60-80K USD just lying around. In fact, I could send her to 10 schools in one year for the amount I paid in taxes in Canada when I was there.
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In Canada, you can probably get a stronger or equal education going to our public schools then the "elite school" you choose to funnel tons of money into. I've noted a lot of immigrant families with money are obsessed about private schools, but most Canadians who grew up here understand the strength of most of our public schools ( and universities ) and that you can succeed or excel in life with that education. I guess it's a lesson though that some parents learn the hard way when they see young adults enter the work force and move ahead ( or not ) in life.

I suppose in some countries, including parts of the US I guess, the quality of public education just doesn't cut it and the private option is needed. I could also see some below average or special needs students need some extra help that may be well served by private schools.

You can complain all you want about taxes in Canada but two of the benefits of such taxes are quality public education and universal healthcare.
 
nooby_mcnoob said:
https://www.medicaltourismassociation.com/en/medical-tourism-faq-s.html

I speak from experience. If you live in a major Canadian city and god forbid your population density is greater than 50 ppl per square mile, you will have a hell of a wait. I had to take my daughter to a small BC town to get medical attention because we had an 8 month wait in the big city. So I'd pay $300K for what exactly, I'm not sure.
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I've never had to wait for medical care in Toronto. My costs are very small compared to most Americans. The friends I had that needed recent surgeries ( hip, knee ) got it done locally and the wait time was quite reasonable. The one guy had a recent financial windfall selling his house, considered paying some money to get it done quicker elsewhere, but in the end a spot opened up so no need to spend the money.

So you'll have to excuse me if I'm cynical about the constant carping of Americans here about the Canadian medical system. You aren't painting an accurate picture of what is involved. Overall, Canadians outlive Americans by 3.6 years as of 2016. I'm not sure what reality Americans attribute that too, but you'd get bs posted no matter what factor you picked ( be it gun control, the American diet, or your health care system and related accessibility ). Life span statistics can't be denied. Neither can insurance rates, they are real numbers.
 
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Nine_Ender said:
I've never had to wait for medical care in Toronto. My costs are very small compared to most Americans. The friends I had that needed recent surgeries ( hip, knee ) got it done locally and the wait time was quite reasonable. The one guy had a recent financial windfall selling his house, considered paying some money to get it done quicker elsewhere, but in the end a spot opened up so no need to spend the money.

So you'll have to excuse me if I'm cynical about the constant carping of Americans here about the Canadian medical system. You aren't painting an accurate picture of what is involved. Overall, Canadians outlive Americans by 3.6 years as of 2016. I'm not sure what reality Americans attribute that too, but you'd get bs posted no matter what factor you picked ( be it gun control, the American diet, or your health care system and related accessibility ). Life span statistics can't be denied. Neither can insurance rates, they are real numbers.
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OK
 
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