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Comment by diebir | Hacker News Reader

This guy is either an idiot or tries to sell something. More like both.

He goes around self treating a serious spine condition, trying to find a doc to inject steroids for cash (which is treating the symptoms, not the root cause).

Then he goes for a surgery in some third world place "because it's cheap"; a surgery on his spine no less, where he may or may not ever walk again if something goes wrong.

Then, he touts a quick recovery, he being, from what he looks like, about 30 years old.

Give me a friggin break.

I am not "buying a surgery for cash" for something as critical as my spine. Or knees. Or appendectomy. Or anything else.

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What did I "self treat"? My doctor in India recommended the steroid injection in order to enable me to travel and a first world doctor provided the service. Treating symptoms well enough so that I can travel was the only purpose - the discectomy is what actually solved the problem.

If you want to spend extra money on a non-Indian doctor living in America, have fun. I don't plan to do the same - I've generally found care in India to be equal or superior to care in the US.

I'm not sure what you think I'm selling. I did name drop the doctor/hospital where I went, but they've paid me nothing and probably have no idea I wrote this post.

> Then he goes for a surgery in some third world place "because it's cheap"

You missed the point of the article, which is to not attribute price to quality. Also being so dismissive of poorer countries as having reasonable doctor/facilities smacks of ignorance and exactly what this article is challenging.

>I am not "buying a surgery for cash" for something as critical as my spine. Or knees. Or appendectomy. Or anything else.

That's fine. But I might want to. Have you considered this?

What are you buying it with then? Good will, bitcoins, large assets or perhaps something else?

I think I may be misunderstanding you. Did you mean that you aren't going to base a major health care purchase on cost alone? That certainly makes sense but it also makes sense to me that cost is indeed a factor even if its not as important to you as it is to the OP.

I've heard many similar stories from people who have had medical procedures outside the US. Even in more developed nations, a foreigner paying out of pocket with zero insurance can be substantially cheaper than the same in the US. Meanwhile, the most common cause of bankruptcy here is getting sick. Something is very wrong about the medical system in the US.

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