Earlier this summer, U.S. women’s rugby team player Ariana Ramsey came home from the 2024 Paris Olympics with more than just a bronze medal. She also returned with a pair of free eyeglasses and a new TikTok bio that read: “Universal Free Healthcare Advocate.”
Following her team’s victory against Australia, the 24-year-old Olympian went viral on TikTok by documenting her experience receiving completely free healthcare in the Olympic Village. Ramsey had dental and vision exams, as well as a pap smear.
“Of course, I’m amazed. We don’t have free healthcare in America,” she said in a video responding to people’s comments about her excitement for the complimentary services. “So, yeah, I’m amazed by free healthcare.”
Most of us mere mortals will never see the inside of an Olympic Village, let alone partake in its medical practitioner perks. But Ramsey’s experience reflects a phenomenon that many people are participating in: medical tourism. American patients are traveling all over the world to undergo medical procedures, physical exams and surgeries.
One of the main reasons for medical tourism, unsurprisingly, is cost. When Anna McKitrick, a 30-year-old who hosts vegan food tours around the world, woke up one morning in July 2020 with excruciating pain in her mouth, she knew she had to do something — and fast. “I woke up and thought someone shot me in the face,” McKitrick told HuffPost. “I’d never been in that much pain in my life.”
She ended up having the tooth extracted in the United States but needed an implant urgently. “When you extract a tooth, it’s a bit of a time crunch,” she said. “You have to put something in the empty space or it will mess up your teeth for life.”
She was working as a server in Los Angeles at the time, and even with dental insurance, she was quoted $40,000 to cover the work she needed done.
McKitrick’s mom, who also dealt with a related problem and had a similar procedure done in Switzerland, did some research. She was referred by that Switzerland clinic to a surgeon that trained at a facility in Costa Rica.
“I didn’t have $40,000 to spend on my teeth,” McKitrick said. “After looking into it, we decided going to Costa Rica would be the best option.”
Once there, she had two implants, crowns and four cavitation surgeries for a quarter of the price it would have cost in the States ― around $10,000.
The financial appeal is undeniable. Healthcare in the U.S. is often…
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