Obamacare: Change Mexico Can Believe In

Meredith Jessup | April 22, 2010 3:30 PM

We've heard stories about Canadians crossing over the U.S. border to get quality health care in the past. But with Obamacare the new law of the land and the demand for quality health care dramatically increasing with millions of new patients entering the already over-taxed market, the result is the possibility of Americans crossing over the border for Mexican health care.

Sad, but true:

Rising medical needs in the United States are creating new opportunities for Mexico’s health care industry to serve a broad range of U.S. patients, from baby boomers to Southern California’s large Latino work force.
But participants in a daylong conference Wednesday at the Institute of the Americas on the UC San Diego campus said that a range of legislative and regulatory changes are needed. The event drew health care experts, tourism officials, nonprofit groups, real estate promoters and others who see the potential for growth in cross-border care...
U.S. health care reform is expected to expand the pool of workers with medical insurance, with 100,000 to 300,000 additional enrollees expected in San Diego and Imperial counties by 2014, said Frank Carrillo, chief executive of SIMNSA Health Plan, which sells group insurance plans to U.S. employers whose workers receive medical care in Mexico.
“The system cannot handle it here, so they need to look at Mexico as a safety net,” Carrillo said, adding that many of the newly insured will be legal immigrants from Mexico who are comfortable with Mexican physicians.

Sigh. The gradual decline of America is not an easy thing to watch. It looks like Obama's Science Czar John Holdren's prediction was true: America' can't be #1 forever. But it's not because we lack the talent or know-how. Instead, our own government--preoccupied with bringing us down to everyone else's level--seems intent on driving us into the ground.