It’s been two years since you’ve had a physical exam. You need to have your vision checked and your teeth cleaned. But you are one of 44,000,000 U.S. citizens without health insurance.
Who ya gonna call?
Your local travel agency for an airplane ticket to Thailand - or a handful of other developing countries with top-rate medical care at rock-bottom prices.
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“I’ll be in the third jungle, second rice paddy to the left.” Bob told his ex-wife when he left Michigan for Thailand last year.
“And that’s pretty close to where I ended up,” the Vietnam Vet tells me as we drive through northeastern Thailand in his king cab Toyota pickup truck listening to Dolly Parton wailing “The Rockin’ Years”. Bob says he’d rather meet Dolly in person than any American president. Who was his favorite president? I ask. “Nixon,” Bob says. “He brought us home with what little honor we had left.”
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The first thing that struck me about the city of Bangkok, besides the fact that it was hot and steamy, was its exploding skyline. In Thailand, architecture is considered the highest form of art, and it shows. I was no longer in a troubled Nepal village, but a pulsating, vital metropolis of six million smiling people. I saw no machine guns, read no headlines that said, “Twelve Rebels ‘Shot Dead’”, and it looked and felt like everyone had a job. I hadn’t been in a city this upbeat since San Francisco at the height of the Dot.Com surge. But unlike San Francisco, Bangkok is affordable. Everything anyone could possibly want (and maybe you have to live in “outpost” for a while to appreciate this) can be purchased at a discount - from housing, to tailor made clothes, electronics, textiles, indigenous crafts, excellent medical care, some of the best food on the planet, and, oh yeah, sex.
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