Visa Healthcare Card Not for Everyone

By Dian Vujovich

No matter what your stand on health care reform, a recent article in The Miami Herald could leave you fuming.

Before getting into it, the United States is said to offer the best healthcare in the world. Really. Even though figures relating to our infant mortality rate ain’t so hot. According to data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last October, at least 28 different countries around the globe have lower death rates for infants during their first year of life than we do. Oh my.

Then again, it seems as though people from all over that same globe come here for care.

The latest reason for making South Florida a medical tourism destination is that the Bank of the Bahamas has announced a Visa card allowing Bahamians a 30 to 60 percent discount at seven South Florida hospitals.

You read that right. Visa, those wonderful care-about-everybody-credit-card vultures, now have a card that will save Bahamians, not US-ians, hundreds if not tens of thousands of dollars on hospital procedures.

Info about the card’s terms show it will cost cardholders $150 a year, includes surcharges and no doubt more when one reads the little print. But Holy Pace Maker, 30 to 60 percent off is a pretty attractive deal. Particularly when just an overnight sleep at a hospital—sans treatment– often runs more than 1000 bucks an hour.

Full story at: http://tinyurl.com/no69z9