Will U.S. law hurt tourism?
From the print edition
When the U.S. Supreme Court
upheld the country’s health care reform law last week, Costa Rica’s
private medical sector paid close attention.
The Affordable Care
Act, known colloquially as “Obamacare,” will extend health insurance to
approximately 40 million uninsured U.S. citizens.
The Supreme
Court decision could hamper the growing global medical tourism industry,
a key tourist market in Costa Rica. According to the Council for
International Promotion of Costa Rica Medicine (PROMED), in 2010, the
country counted 36,000 medical tourists, who generated $288 million in
revenue.
Numbers have not yet been announced for 2011. But PROMED
estimates 12 percent growth, putting the number at 40,000 tourists. At a
medical tourism conference in April, organizers predicated the industry
could begin attracting 100,000 medical tourists by 2013.
Health
officials acknowledged those estimates might need to be tempered with
U.S. health care reform a reality. Barring a repeal of the law by
Republican lawmakers, the full extent of the reforms will go into effect
on Jan. 1, 2014.
The medical tourism industry’s philosophy
centers on providing quality care that’s more cost-efficient because
it’s received outside the United States. But with more citizens
obtaining insurance, health care in the U.S. becomes more affordable.
However,
the law will not cover certain popular medical tourism procedures,
including elective surgeries and dental care. Dental treatments
represent almost 40 percent of medical tourism, while plastic surgery
represents another large percentage.
At the same time, medical
tourism promoters have been researching ways to provide care for
procedures often covered by insurance.
One initiative that is
gaining traction is corporate tourism. The program negotiates with
health insurance companies working with other private companies to
create deals where employees travel abroad for treatment.
“If we
see health care reform possibly reducing the individual market for
medical travel, we could have a huge opportunity for corporate buyers
for health care,” PROMED Executive Director Massimo Manzi said.
While
“Obamacare” might cause individual tourist numbers to stagnate,
businesses still have the potential to bring planeloads of tourists down
for treatments. The key to convince companies and their employees to
receive treatment in Costa Rica is to provide incentives, said Bob
Repke, president of Global Medical Conexions, a corporate medical
tourism facilitator.
Repke has spoken on the law at medical
tourism conferences in Costa Rica. The June 28 Supreme Court ruling is
fresh, and he and the rest of the industry haven’t had time yet to
digest the law, which has more than 2,000 pages. However, he insists
medical tourism promoters should see many positives in the outcome.
“We’ve
been seeing an increase in medical travel in the last five years, and
we still haven’t penetrated the market fully,” Repke said, adding that
opportunities also include markets in the Caribbean and the rest of
Latin America.
Besides corporate tourism, another boost could come
from those who are impatient with the new system. In Canada, a country
with universal health care, patients can wait up to two years to receive
non-life-threatening procedures, such as knee or hip replacements.
Patients could choose to receive surgery faster in Costa Rica.
Repke
said those same long lines will form in the U.S., except in larger
numbers. Plus, medical tourism’s reputation has strengthened over the
years, and Repke believes in the future more foreigners will take
interest in the idea.