Carol Schmidt
Sep 21, 2003, 6:07 PM
Post #4 of 7
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Re: [lvsseasand] More Questions about living in SMA
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Though retired people predominate, I see lots of 30-somethings around in the gringo community. There is so much to do here, it is not a quiet little town at all, the weekly English-language paper lists at least half a dozen things to do for every day plus there are clubs and social events which do not make it into the calendar.
Salsa music and dancing? You jest--I can immediately think of four restaurant/bars which play live music after 9 and I think all encourage dancing. Mama Mia's has three different bars with different music and dancing--one is rock, one is more oldies, and one is salsa, great fun to watch even if you don't dance. Tio Lucas and Agave are a half-block from me and I go past them most nights and often am lured into one of them by the music. Agave in particular has a lot of salsa and fusion bands. Tio Lucas has an older woman doing many standards three nights, and a younger woman on an accordion one afternoon, but they have jazz and salsa other nights. Then there's Char-Rock whch has all kinds of music and dancing, a younger crowd. I know a bunch of other restauramt-bars must have salsa music too but I haven't become aware of them. This town rocks!
AS for prescriptions, the only things that can be hard to come by are narcotics-type stuff, heavy duty pain medication. Oxycontin is easily available, the durogesic patch is harder to find. New brand name drugs usually cosst about the same here as in the States--Vioxx was around $70 a month for my partner in AZ and she found it for $55 here. But many drugs are much, much cheaper here, and few require prescriptions (those heavy duty pain ones and tranquilizers, mainly).
There are small pharmacies all over, and often they only have one package of a particular drug, and the package sizes are smaller, so sometimes you have to shop several places to get a month's supply. As in much of the world, there is an overuse of antibiotics, including for sicknesses that they will do nothing for, and it is so easy to run into the drugstore and pick up an antibiotic for anthing.
I just survived an extremely serious illness and surgery that sent me back to Phoenix because I didn't want to be operated on in a tiny hospital, and Medicare wouldn't pay for anything in Mexico anyway. Up till then, I had found it cheaper to pay full price in Mexico for drugs and medical care than what my copays would have been on my HMO back in Phoenix.
All the doctors in Phoenix said that the Mexican doctors had done exactly what they should have to diagnose and treat my strange condition, and they were right about the need for immediate surgery as well. So that was encouraging--I'm going to enjoy telling my local doctors that the "experts" in the States said they did everything right.
There are two hospitals in SMA, one the general one that takes the government health care plan and the other a private one started by several of the best doctors in town and which is used by gringos more than the other one, though I have heard excellent reports from some gringos who went to the general hospital for emergencies like a broken leg and they got excellent care, cheaper too. There are insurance plans available for U.S. citizens, including one for the big hospital in San Luis Potosi for something like a thousand U.S. dollars a year--I could be way off on that figure, but it was more than $800 U.S. when I looked into it 1 1/2 years ago. With pre-existing conditions I didn't qualify for much so I didn't go into much detail in my research. You probably will want to do more research yourself, considering your parents' ages and your accessibility to getting back to the States for care if needed.
The whole question of health care in Mexico for gringos is complex and is covered in many places on MexConnect, so search around and learn more.
Carol Schmidt
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