Quote Originally Posted by david petley View Post
And from what I read, it is not 6 million, but over one million, by 2010.
The medical tourism site quoted the wrong figures.
If you follow the link "Researchers have confirmed that:" it will take you to the real article at TIME which states:
The medical tourism industry has experienced massive growth over the past decade. Experts in the field say as many as 150,000 U.S. citizens underwent medical treatment abroad in 2006 — the majority in Asia and Latin America. That number grew to an estimated 750,000 in 2007 and could reach as high as 6 million by 2010.
For some reason the links to TIME don't work from FK.
It seems that all links here go through some "go.internet.com" proxy redirect which screws up the TIME url.
Copy and paste the url below to go to the article.

time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1861919,00.html

Following some of the links in that article leads to other related TIME articles.
An interesting sidenote, I always thought that medical tourism from the US was mainly for cosmetic/plastic surgery, but according to the CEO of the Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok, 83% of American patients flew in for noncosmetic surgeries.

time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1196429,00.html

Whiplash was just the first agony that Kevin Miller, 45, suffered in a car accident last July. The second was sticker shock. The self-employed and uninsured chiropractor from Eunice, La., learned that it would cost $90,000 to get the herniated disk in his neck repaired. So, over the objections of his doctors, he turned to the Internet and made an appointment with Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok, the marble-floored mecca of the medical trade that--with its liveried bellhops, fountains and restaurants--resembles a grand hotel more than a clinic. There a U.S.-trained surgeon fixed Miller's injured disk for less than $10,000. "I wouldn't hesitate to come back for another procedure," says Miller, who was recovering last week at the Westin Grande in Bangkok.
With this surgical sojourn, his first trip outside the U.S., Miller joined the swelling ranks of medical tourists. As word has spread about the high-quality care and cut-rate surgery available in such countries as India, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, a growing stream of uninsured and underinsured Americans are boarding planes not for the typical face-lift or tummy tuck but for discount hip replacements and sophisticated heart surgeries. Bumrungrad alone, according to CEO Curtis Schroeder, saw its stream of American patients climb to 55,000 last year, a 30% rise. Three-quarters of them flew in from the U.S.; 83% came for noncosmetic treatments. Meanwhile, India's trade in international patients is increasing at the same rate.