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Medellín, Colombia: The Cheapest Real City In The World

Prescription Drugs For One-Tenth The Cost You're Paying Now

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
Feb 06, 2020
in Colombia, Health Care, Lifestyle, Retirement/Living
0
medellin colombia town center

Image Source: iStock/MarcPo

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Excellent infrastructure… strong investor rights… appreciating property markets…

Biggest salsa festival in the world… plus important theater and poetry festivals… biggest flower festival in the region (taking place every August)… and second-biggest Carnival (after Rio)…

World’s most colorful river… and more species of butterflies than anywhere else on earth…

I’m talking about Colombia…

Which is also South America’s oldest democracy… and one of the three happiest countries in the world… because, as everyone I know who has spent time in the country agrees, the focus is family and friends… Colombians have their priorities in order…

Medellín is the cheapest real city in the world. That distinction used to be held by Quito… but, at the current dollar-Colombian peso exchange rate, Medellín is the better buy by far…

Here’s something else you should know about Colombia:

Medical tourism has increased by 62% since 2010.

The United States is ranked 37th globally for the quality of its health care.

Colombia is ranked 22nd.

Meantime, the costs of health-care services in Colombia are one-fourth to one-fifth as much as those in the United States.

Why wouldn’t you go to Colombia for care if you were able?

One Medellín expat, Jeff, a physician from the United States, recently shared real-life story after real-life story of other expats who’ve sought health care in this city…

Starting with his own story of seeing a dentist for an annual checkup.

Jeff scheduled the appointment online through his local insurance provider, he explained, and was charged US$1 for the visit. He scheduled a follow-up visit for a cleaning… which, again, cost him US$1.

Then, Jeff continued, a dental implant with a crown came loose. For this he made an appointment with a private, English-speaking dentist who referred him to a specialist. The cost of that visit was zero.

The implant specialist saw Jeff for the next day and worked on the crown for an hour-and-a-half to make the repair. The cost was US$50.

Another expat, Susie, Jeff continued, had abdominal pain and went to a local Emergency Room where she was seen by an MD. The cost of the ER visit, the diagnostics, and the prescription for treatment was US$46.

John, Jeff continued, contracted a terminal illness while in Medellín. He was in and out of the ER several times and admitted to the hospital. Finally, at his request, John was sent home for palliative care. The treatment extended over one year and included doctor and nurse care in John’s home. The total out-of-pocket cost was US$50.

Medellín also has assisted-living facilities… where the all-in cost is US$2,000 per month… including comfortable and pleasant living space, good food, and all medical care.

Jeff made another noteworthy point. Not only is medical care much less costly in Colombia than in the United States… but so are prescription drugs.

Jeff showed me a chart. On it were listed 12 common drugs—from Cialis to Zithromax —along with their average costs in the United States and their costs (in generic form) in Colombia.

In each case, the cost in Colombia was one-half to one-tenth as much as the going U.S. price.

Kathleen Peddicord

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Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has covered the live, retire, and do business overseas beat for more than 30 years and is considered the world's foremost authority on these subjects. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 21, established businesses in 7, renovated historic properties in 6, and educated her children in 4.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets across three continents, from the East Coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland... then to Paris, France... next to Panama City, where she has based her Live and Invest Overseas business. Most recently, Kathleen and her husband Lief Simon are dividing their time between Panama and Paris.

Kathleen was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. In that capacity, she opened her first office overseas, in Waterford, Ireland, where she managed a staff of up to 30 employees for more than 10 years. Kathleen also opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France.

Kathleen moved on from her role with Agora in 2007 and launched her Live and Invest Overseas group in 2008. In the years since, she has built Live and Invest Overseas into a successful, recognized, and respected multi-million-dollar business that employs a staff of 35 in Panama City and dozens of writers and other resources around the world.

Kathleen has been quoted by The New York Times, Money magazine, MSNBC, Yahoo Finance, the AARP, and beyond. She has appeared often on radio and television (including Bloomberg and CNBC) and speaks regularly on topics to do with living, retiring, investing, and doing business around the world.

In addition to her own daily e-letter, the Overseas Opportunity Letter, with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers, Kathleen writes regularly for U.S. News & World Report and Forbes.

Her newest book, "How to Retire Overseas: Everything You Need to Know to Live Well (for Less) Abroad," published by Penguin Random House, is the culmination of decades of personal experience living and investing around the world.

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