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Glenn Beck’s diatribe on India

From Santosh On 9 December 2009 View Comments

Paging the protestor extraordinaire and the saffron clad protector of all things Indian and Hindu – Glenn Beck has insulted the holy Ganges.

MediaMatters has this clip of conservative commentator Glenn Beck launching into a vicious anti-India diatribe just to make an argument in the healthcare debate. Biting sarcasm is one thing but Beck hits an all-time low on the intelligent argument quotient when arguing against the benefits of cheaper healthcare in India he chooses to highlight India’s lack of flush toilets and goes on to state that the name “Ganges” sounds like a disease.

Over the past decade an increasing number of Americans have been engaging in medical tourism to India to save on healthcare costs. Like most topics on healthcare, this one is also not without its merits and demerits and well worthy of a debate. To answer Beck’s quip, yes, a large percent of the population of India still doesn’t have flushing toilets and the “Ganges” may sound funny to his unsophisticated ear but, and at the risk of trivializing this debate, if you can get past those minor hangups, you can have heart surgery for around $10,000 and a hip replacement for $9,000, compared with $130,000 and $43,000 respectively in the United States, especially if you have no insurance coverage or have been denied under the pretext of preexisting condition.

After experiencing healthcare in America for close to a decade, I was forced to get reacquainted with Indian medical care and the general impression I came away with was that, you get what you pay for, without having to worry about preexisting conditions or interference from insurance companies.

Thoughts? Opinions?

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  • Parishkar Sharma
    Make a google news search for "Ronald Lemmer" .

    He is a 65 years old American Patient from Minneapolis who went on for heart transplant surgery in INDIA.

    It's not about money , but for chose to be operated in INDIA for the sake of his life. People from all over the world are coming to India for getting medical treatments. Even parents from Pakistan gets their child treated in INDIA .

    http://tinyurl.com/3xfj66p
  • Dolores,

    I'm assuming the above comment was not rhetorical, I'm not sure if I can understand it completely either. I don't think this post's author mentioned anything about "American salaries as spending money for Americans", you bring a lot of unnecessary points not related to the above discussion and I think your view of a "medical tourist taking advantage of poverty" is erroneous. The medical tourist is taking advantage of extremely cheap medical procedures, and an average Indian not having a pot to piss in is nowhere connected to medical tourism, other than the fact that a huge increase in number of medical tourists would eventually provide the pot you seem to be concerned about.

    I think you actually sound like Glenn Beck above, who is connecting non-existent dots, he is probably just pissed off that American dollars are going to Indian doctors, and he probably has a right to be pissed off (with or without a pot), but this has nothing to do with patriotism, tomorrow if Mexicans discover a 10$ hip replacement procedure, Americans are going to go there, they don't care about Indian or Mexican poverty. Hope you can see that simple logic.
  • Dolores,
    I'm not sure what your point or problem is. Medical tourism happens for some who cannot afford to pay for it here. Medical care and basic sanitation are issues to a large section of Indians, who still live under poverty. I'm not sure which one of these statements you're arguing about.
    You're talking about "Indians living here" as if they are the ones engaging in medical tourism. A large section of Indian-origin people living in the US pay more taxes, pay for their own healthcare and generate a larger per-capita group of doctors than the average American irrespective of race, age or sex.
    Check your facts before you bring up piss pots or make fun of Indian sounding names.
  • Dolores
    The public health infrastructure of India vs. the US is not a trivial issue. The vast majority of Indians can't afford that cheap surgery, and rabies is still a significant cause of death - in humans. You are talking about taking advantage of the disparity of economic ecologies between the US and India. Yes, every thing costs more here but we also spend more. Everything the Indians love about living here: the clean pavement, the cops who won't expect a tip, the public libraries, the covered sewage, the plumbing everywhere came with a cost. When it suits Indians, they talk like those big American salaries are merely spending money for Americans, they conveniently forget how our lifestyle is paid for. So, the medical tourist can take advantage of the poverty of India and that the average Indian literally doesn't have a pot to piss in.
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