"It saved my life," says Carol Stubbs, of the Turks and Caicos Islands. "It was a miracle, you see. I'm serious. It's a miracle." Stubbs is a cancer survivor, who came to Miami's Baptist Hospital for life-saving treatment. And she obviously got it--that's her, pictured above.
As reported by NPR's Greg Allen, Stubbs is one of a growing foreigners who come to the US seeking Serious Medicine--and they are finding it. That's not only making them better off, it's making us better off. As NPR's Allen explains:
In 2008, 400,000 people from foreign countries came to the U.S. for health care, spending nearly $5 billion, according to a report by the consulting firm Deloitte & Touche. It's a fast-growing market that's expected to double within the next three years.
Isn't that the kind of stimulus we want? Not the government printing or borrowing money, but foreigners coming here and buying things--in this case, Serious Medicine--and going home happy.
Not only does Carol Stubbs and her family have a happy story, but this is a happy story, too, for the American economy. How many industries do we have left in the US that beat the world competition? Shouldn't we be seeking to expand this industry, not contract it?
And that's why we need a Serious Medicine Strategy.
Jim, Exactly, American health care is not a problem it is an economic opportunity.. and the platform for prosperity...From 1970 to 2000, increased longevity added approximately $3.2 trillion per year to national wealth, the equivalent of half of the average annual gross domestic product (GDP) over the period. Over half of these gains, according to a University of Chicago study were due to biomedical innovations developed in the United States. Economist Robert Fogel notes that, “just as electricity and manufacturing were the industries that stimulated the growth of the rest of the economy at the beginning of the twentieth century, health care is the growth industry of the twenty first century.
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