3 Countries Where Healthcare Costs Less Than Half the Price in America

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In August 2025, a Reddit contributor recalled paying $5,300 for a single dental implant in California, plus hundreds extra for services like X-rays and a temporary filler tooth, with minimal help from insurance, all while enduring long waits between steps in the procedure.  

Requiring five more, the patient traveled to India for treatment, where a Harvard-trained dentist performed the procedure for $650 per implant — including X-rays — and provided excellent treatment on an accelerated timeline. 

This, of course, is anecdotal evidence based on one person’s experience — but one that’s part of a medical tourism industry that Fortune Business Insights projects to grow from $38.2 billion in 2025 to $162.8 billion by 2032.

The industry exists because some countries offer premium care at a fraction of the price they’d pay to get the same treatment in the high-quality, but high-cost American healthcare system.

Comparing Global Healthcare Costs Is an Inexact Science

It’s challenging to quantify what individuals pay for healthcare in their respective countries because of varied and often complex payment systems that can involve private insurance, income-based subsidies to that insurance, tax-based universal coverage, cost-sharing programs, employer-based coverage or some combination of them all. 

According to Statista: 

• All advanced economies, excluding the U.S., provide some type of universal healthcare coverage, but insured Americans typically pay a similar out-of-pocket percentage — 10% to 20% — as residents of countries like Japan, Germany, France, Canada and the U.K. 
• In China, the out-of-pocket percentage is 34% because of gaps in the country’s nearly universal coverage. 
• In other countries, such as Afghanistan and Nigeria, out-of-pocket expenses can reach 80%, but the cost and quality of care — like the average income — is much lower. 

Therefore, the only way to quantify where healthcare costs are half or less than in the U.S. is by examining the full price of common procedures and services in countries that deliver comparable levels of quality care. 

The 3 Top Countries for U.S.-Level Healthcare at Less Than Half the Price

Platforms like Karetrip, which facilitates medical tourism and Global Healthcare Accreditation, which awards and regulates universal certifications for hotels, businesses and medical travel professionals, consistently name the following countries as top medical tourism destinations with high-quality facilities, skilled professionals and low costs. 

India

The Times of India recently reported on its home country’s booming medical tourism industry, which continues to draw Americans with the promise of world-class medical care at far below half the cost for many of the most common procedures: 

• Heart bypass surgery: $5,000 to $8,000 versus $70,000 to $150,000 in the U.S.
• Knee replacement surgery: $4,000 to $6,000 versus $30,000 to $50,000 in the U.S.
• Kidney transplant: $7,000 to $12,000 versus $200,000 to $300,000 in the U.S. 
• Annual individual health insurance premium: $120 to $300 versus more than $8,000 in the U.S. 

Mexico

CMQ Hospital is a healthcare system and hospital network spanning several regions of Mexico, known for specialized services and comprehensive medical care. It also gathers and compiles data on global costs for treatments and procedures from the roughly 1 million mostly American and Canadian medical tourists who seek healthcare in Mexico every year, according to their website. 

Here are a few of the many treatments it lists that cost less than half their Stateside price: 

• Angioplasty: $11,500 versus $28,200 in the U.S. 
• Lasik (both eyes): $1,900 versus $4,000 in the U.S. 
• Hysterectomy: $4,500 versus $15,400 in the U.S. 

Singapore

Pacific Prime is an insurance firm that sells global medical insurance plans in Singapore, the U.S., Thailand, Hong Kong, Australia, Indonesia and a half-dozen other countries. Its data on pricing in Singapore’s highly rated healthcare system offers the following average cost comparisons.

• Heart valve replacement: $12,500 versus $160,000 in the U.S. 
• Hip replacement: $12,000 versus $43,000 in the U.S.
• Spinal fusion: $9,000 versus $62,000 in the U.S.

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