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It costs 1/3 as much to have a baby delivered in Mexico as it does in the US,



that isn't surprising. they're a third world nation.



A lot of the cost difference is that the unskilled labor was paid to Mexican standards, not US levels.

But most of the difference was that the hospital actually got paid, on time and in full. A lot of US hospital ER patients never pay, and welfare and insurance patients tend to pay very late, and Medicare in particular doesn't pay the full bill.

US hospitals often give 30% discounts for cash patients so for a Mexican hospital to claim this is a 50% reduction isn't impossible.

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and you get better service.



this, on the other hand, is surprising. what services are better in mexico than the us regarding childbirth?



The most obvious is that there was a "nurse" (not an RN) assigned to you alone from the moment you walked in the door until you checked out. That nurse had no other patients during that time: you got 100% attention. I liken the job to a "personal medical concierge".

There was a huge difference between the RNs and other nurses: the RNs were graduates of US schools whereas other "nurses" were from Mexican schools, and the RNs called the shots. But the personally-assigned nurse was really there more for coordination, translations (the doctors and RNs spoke English but not everyone else did), etc - as much for marketing as anything else.

The biggest obvious drawback is payment. Right inside the door is the business office, and you don't go any further until you've paid in full. Your wife may be in labor and about to pop, but no one will lift a finger or even look your way until you pay, and that means cash, no credit cards or checks. My friend paid in advance so there would be no delay (this is what the hospital recommends for deliveries).

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ok, so you know one person that went to mexico and zero that went to india for health care. well done. to be honest, I'm ready to have my mind changed on this issue.



It's not that rare. This hospital did a fair amount of business with American patients and was trying to grow that.

Keep in mind they aren't doing brain transplants or anything like that: they're doing fairly mundane low-risk procedures. Had it been a problem pregnancy the family would have been sent back to the US.

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is it equal to or greater than the amount of our friends from the north that come here for heath care?



Probably not. Mexicans have been going to Houston for at least 50 years for complex medical treatment, but there haven't been many first-world trained doctors and nurses in Mexico until recently (likewise India).

But the goals suggest parity is coming: the Mexican hospitals are trying to get into the market for "routine" procedures and leave the specialized cases to the US, meaning they'll compete for "volume" business. India is trying to focus on more extensive (read: expensive) services because of the extra cost of travel to India and this may be a little harder.
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