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Costa Rica is Home to Top 5 Best Global Medical Care

These 5 Countries Provide The Best Health Care In The World | InternationalLiving.com.

Best Healthcare in the World

InternationalLiving.com’s annual Global Retirement Index reports that France, Uruguay and Malaysia provide the best and most affordable health care in the world.

The Health Care category in the Index considers the cost of care and the quality. Also considered are the number of people per doctor, the number of hospital beds per 1,000 people, the percentage of the population with access to safe water, the infant mortality rate, life expectancy, and public-health expenditure as a percentage of a country’s GDP.

France comes in first in this category as the best country in the world for health care. The Top 5 countries with the best healthcare in the world are as follows:

  1. France
  2. Uruguay
  3. Malaysia
  4. Costa Rica
  5. Mexico

 1. France

According to the World Health Organization, France has the number one health care system in the world. The country also comes first in the health care category of the InternationalLiving.com annual Global Retirement Index 2014. Despite their meat-and cream-rich diet augmented by alcohol and cigarettes, the French have been living much longer in recent years. Life expectancy now averages 85 years for women and 78 for men. 

2. Uruguay

Uruguay has a variety of health care options available that include a public health care system for people who cannot afford to pay for private health care, a number of private health insurance options, and the most popular option, a hospital plan called a “mutualista.” Therefore Uruguay comes in second in the health care category of the InternationalLiving.com annual Global Retirement Index 2014. InternationalLiving.com’s Uruguay correspondent, David Hammond, who has lived in the country for seven years, says: “My personal experience with health care in Uruguay has been positive. The cost is a fraction of what I paid for private coverage in the U.S.” 

3. Malaysia

Malaysia has gained fame as a medical-tourism destination because its health care is among the world’s best—and cheapest. Medical expertise here is equal to or better than that in most Western countries. Malaysia comes in third in the health care category of the InternationalLiving.com annual Global Retirement Index 2014. Despite the low cost of health care in Malaysia, many expats do get private health insurance. There is a plethora of national insurers, with no one company being preferred—expats tend to shop around and look for the cheapest offer. 

4. Costa Rica

Hospital de Osa Costa Rica ball blue
Hospital de Osa is located less than five minutes from Las Villas de San Buenas.

Costa Rica’s excellent and affordable health care is largely the result of government investment in the health sector, plus an atmosphere of political stability. Costa Rica comes in fourth in the health care category of the InternationalLiving.com annualGlobal Retirement Index 2014. By almost any standard, Costa Rica has some of the best health care in Latin America. Not only that, but the country’s public and private health systems are constantly being upgraded—new hospitals, new equipment, and improvements in staff training. 

NOTE from Las Villas de San Buenas: One of Costa Rica’s newest hospitals is located just a couple of miles from Las Villas de San Buenas. This provides an extra layer of support and affordable healthcare options for our clients and guests.

5. Mexico

Given the galloping rise in health care costs in the U.S. and elsewhere, Mexico’s affordable and top-notch health care is a huge benefit to living there. Pretty much across the board, health care in Mexico costs a quarter to a half of what you would pay in the U.S. Mexico comes in fifth in the health care category of the InternationalLiving.com annual Global Retirement Index 2014. Medical insurance with Mexico’s national health care service costs less than $300 a year; private insurance will cost more, depending on age and pre-existing conditions—but still a fraction of what you’d pay in the U.S. for similar coverage. Photo: Glynna Prentice,InternationalLiving.com

Slider Hospital de Osa Healthcare

Affordable Costa Rica Healthcare Nearby

Affordable Costa Rica Health Care

Costa Rica is world renown for its high quality and affordable healthcare. Did you know that Costa Rican’s life expectancy is almost equal to that of the United States and of Canada? Additionally, 14% of all tourists receive some form of medical work done during their time in Costa Rica. The two most common types of health care that are performed are dental work and plastic surgery.

Las Villas de San Buenas is located five minutes from one of the newest and most state of the art hospitals in Costa Rica.This allows our residents to easily take advantage of some of the best and most affordable Costa Rica healthcare. For all the details click here.

Many of the doctors, nurses and administrators are fully fluent in both Spanish and English, so communicating is never a problem.

Costa Rica healthcare osa

Medical Tourism Expected to Rise

NOTE: Costa Rica’s healthcare is ranked above the United States’.

Costa Rica Developers Eye Health Care Centres
by Kevin Brass

The Costa Rican government is promoting a plan to help developers build projects centered on health care facilities for foreign retirees.

New developments would offer clusters of services, including nursing and research facilities, catering to senior citizens looking for an inexpensive alternative to medical care in their own countries

In the wake the global economic slowdown, health care centers are an opportunity for developers to “change strategy,” Minister for Competitiveness and Regulatory Improvement George Woodbridge told La Prensa.

Retirement communities generate “two to three times” the revenue of traditional tourism and real estate projects, Woodbridge said. A population of 10,000 retirees could produce 40,000 jobs and $340 million in foreign exchange, the government estimates.

Last year, medical tourism attracted 30,000 visitors to Costa Rica, according to government data. That number is expected to increase as health care costs continue to rise. The U.S. is expected to generate 1.3 million medical tourists in 2011, according to a report by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, which ranks Costa Rica in the top 10 destinations for medical tourism.

Until recently, most of the traffic in the past has been young people looking for cosmetic surgery and dental work, not seniors, Deloitte says.

“With health care at the center of attention in the U.S. this concept could certainly gain ground if implemented properly,” Panama developer Sam Taliaferro notes in his Panama Investor Blog. “If Obamacare gets legs one area that you can be sure will be left out in the cold is alternative health care practitioners. I bet they will head south with technology and skills.”

(For the record, the World Health Organization ranks Costa Rica’s health care system at 36th in the world, one spot ahead of the United States.)