Last July, in a blog entry about the growing trend of "medical tourism"–in which more Americans are forced to seek cheaper health care outside the country–I asked: "Is this really what we've come to in the United States?" Now I'm hearing buzz that more folks are considering foreign long-term care facilities to cut costs. Again, I say, must our own citizens leave the greatest country on Earth to be properly cared for?
In purely economic terms, such a move makes perverse sense. We are struggling here in the United States to find enough qualified, caring individuals to take care of a burgeoning elderly population as the Baby Boom goes bust.
These attendants–mostly working at or slightly above a minimum wage that can't cover decent living expenses, often without health insurance of their own–are shouldering the bulk of the responsibility for the feeding, cleaning and safekeeping of those no longer able to care for themselves.
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