Great Work on Reducing Medical Costs, Uncle Sam

Looks like the wife and I will be going abroad again this year, but not for fun. She is missing a molar, and we are going to fly to Mexico for an implant.

I have never wanted to visit Mexico. I have spent many years in Miami, and Latin culture has worn me down. The emotionalism. The celebration of immaturity. The tedious machismo. The horrific corruption. It’s a lot like my own culture, with which I am equally tired.

Miami culture is mainly Cuban, and however tiresome it is, it’s easier to deal with than Central American culture. You don’t have to be afraid of Cubans. Their neighborhoods aren’t dangerous. They don’t have much interest in gangs. They tend to be successful. They prefer tax evasion and violating environmental laws to stealing children and holding them for ransom.

Right now, a law school friend of mine is in the process of being taken apart for alleged corruption. She’s a government lawyer, and her husband is in real estate. They are accused of snapping up properties belonging to abandoned old people, getting accumulated government fines removed, and reselling them for big profits. They were supposed to be looking after helpless people who had no one to take care of them.

I hate to say it, but it really looks like they’re guilty.

I would never have expected this to happen to her. I knew her as a sweet, kind person. She was Iron Arrow in law school. Iron Arrow is an honorary society somehow related to the Miccosukee tribe, which now runs profitable casinos in South Florida. If you’re inducted, Miccosukees show up at the University of Miami and give you a multicolored jacket assembled from many pieces of cloth. You get Iron Arrow for being committed to public service and having upstanding character.

I’m sure the character stuff involved with Iron Arrow is complete BS, like most character endorsements in legal circles, but it does show she was involved in matters of public interest, and I doubt any of us thought she had character issues at the time.

I have read about her problems, and it’s hard to see any way she and her husband could have ended up in this pickle without doing what they’re accused of. Very sad. I hope there are factors I don’t know about.

To get back to Mexico, I don’t like hot weather or beaches. I don’t care if I never go fishing again. I haven’t been in a bar since…I don’t remember the last time I was in a bar. Maybe 2010? I don’t speak Spanish. I have no interest in learning. I don’t like visiting places where kidnapping is a major industry and the police are criminals.

Mexico, however, has a remarkable feature: excellent, inexpensive healthcare for people who can pay.

My buddy Mike has terrible teeth. They started to fall apart when he was in his fifties. He needed at least one implant. When he found out that implants ran $4500 and up in the US, he looked for options, and he discovered Cancun. In Cancun, a basic implant costs $1500, start to finish.

He found a very fancy clinic with US-trained dentists. He raves about it. He has been there several times. They have a magnificent website. They have incredible reps who correspond with potential customers via email, in flawless English. They pick you up at the airport for nothing, saving you $200. They can give you appointments with less than a week’s notice.

He says the clinic is wonderful. He loves his doctor. He’s friends with the other employees. He knows them by their first names.

I checked this place out, and I was extremely impressed. At first I was interested mainly in saving a ton of money, because my wife’s problems will cost at least $5000 to fix here. After I researched the place, I wanted to take her there mainly because the clinic seemed vastly superior to anything I had ever seen in the US. If the cost were the same, I would still want to take her there. If I ever have real dental problems, I want to go there myself.

We are not the first people Mike has recommended the clinic to. He knew a lady who had a $27,000 bid from an American dentist. She went to Cancun and paid $6,300, and she may have gotten superior work.

I don’t know how you damage your teeth to the tune of $27,000, but apparently it can be done.

The only down side to using the clinic is that you have to go to Mexico.

Apart from the diversions I mentioned above, the only attractions Cancun has are some heathen pyramids. Maybe I’m wrong, but this is what I’ve been told. Mike said he saw them. He said it was an all-day affair, and it wasn’t that great.

I asked my wife about the pyramids, and she does not want to see them. She would rather spend an entire day in our hotel room, praying and sitting around. I wholeheartedly agree.

When I go abroad, I use Viator to book tours and so forth. If you look at Viator’s Cancun offerings, you will see how pathetic they are. Pyramids. Zip-lining.

Zip-lining may be the biggest tourism hoax in history. It doesn’t matter what the location is. Let’s say you’re in a dump like St. Louis. You find two trees, put up a wire, and advertise on Viator. Instant attraction. Ridiculous.

Why ruin a foreign trip, in a place where your medical insurance is no good, with a silly activity you can do 5 miles from your house?

If you don’t insist on a hotel on a beach, you can get a decent room in Cancun for $30 per night. I insist on hotels that are NOT on beaches, so this works out great for me. We wouldn’t go for a $30 room, but an $85 luxury room would be perfect.

Mike recommended hotels in a shopping area. He knows where the good food is. You get your teeth fixed, get a free ride back to the hotel, and then walk to get good food and good prices. Perfect.

I don’t know what kind of shape my wife’s teeth are in. Dentistry is a real mess in Zambia. We tried to get her top-notch treatment there, but it turned out it wasn’t available. She needs one implant, and she has one tooth she knows is in trouble. It seems crazy to go to my American dentist and risk getting a $15,000 estimate before we know what’s what.

My only–ONLY–concern is that my American dentist will be offended and drop us. I really like him. He’s very pleasant, and he has never tried to do anything except x-ray and clean my teeth, so he must be truthful. I would love to use him for all our work, but let’s be honest; this is business. A friendly business relationship with a very nice dentist is not worth $10,000 to me. This county is full of dentists. If there is a tearful breakup, we can find a new one.

I wouldn’t buy a Home Depot refrigerator for $9,000 if I could get one in Mexico for $1,000, even if the employees had been inviting me to their company barbecues and sending me pictures of their kids.

I liked my dentist in Coral Gables. I think he filled tiny cavities that didn’t need filling, though. When the tooth I used for opening beer bottles gave out, I looked at the web at the time and saw that a crown typically cost $600, so I let him fix it. I got a bill for $1750.

Today this guy would probably charge $2500. In Cancun I would pay $450. Add $600 for a flight and hotel, and I’m still over a grand ahead, and I get to get out of the house for a few days. How can you beat that?

I liked my dentist in Coral Gables. We used to have conversations about politics and tools. He was setting up a shop. He had a great hygienist who didn’t beat me up. I would have dumped him for Cancun, though, had I known about it. He didn’t have any reluctance to overcharge and possibly overtreat me. He didn’t worry about my emotions. Why should I have worried about his?

Business is business. You never make friends with a business contact, and you never do business with a social contact. Americans violate these rules all the time. I do not. I have done it in the past, and it has cost me dearly. I am done.

My closest neighbor seems like a great guy, and he has a bunch of land-clearing machines on his property. He uses them to make a living. I need some work. There is no way in hell I would hire him. What if I had to sue him? There he’d be, in my face, a few hundred yards away, year after year, fuming. What if we needed to cooperate because of a storm or something? No, no, no. If I get the work done, I’ll hire someone else.

Some time this year, we will accompany Mike to Cancun for a few days. Then I will deal with my dentist. Maybe he won’t care.

People who vacation in Cancun anyway should use the clinic. They should make their dentally-challenged kids visit while on spring break. It’s strange they’re not already doing this.

It’s best to avoid Cancun during spring break. Fares drop by a third or more, and while you’re there, you are less likely to step in vomit.

While in Cancun, you can also load up on cheap prescription drugs. You can just walk into pharmacies and buy them. I got fluororacil this way, via Mike. It’s the real thing, and it’s excellent for little spots you think might eventually turn into skin cancer.

It’s illegal to bring prescription drugs into the US this way, but the government doesn’t really care, as long as you’re not opening a business. They’ll let you bring it.

I hope the tamales are good in Cancun.