WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- It would have cost Howard Staab, an uninsured carpenter, $200,000 to have his major heart surgery done in his native North Carolina. After spending only one month -- and an all-inclusive $6,700 -- in New Delhi, India, Staab returned to his life`s work without complications.

This week, Staab`s story reached a special U.S. Senate subcommittee on aging that focused on the viability of 'medical tourism,' traveling abroad for medical and cosmetic procedures, for Americans facing skyrocketing health costs.

While Europeans have been taking healthcare treks beyond their borders for a decade or more, stories like Staab`s are being heralded as the beginning of an era in which American citizens have their tummies tucked and hearts healed at hospitals across the globe -- and with a huge price reduction to boot.

'I would seriously consider flying to India for any elective medical procedure that I need in the future, even if my insurance covers 80 percent of the cost,' said Maggi Grace, a patient advocate who accompanied Staab to India and later authored a book about their experience.

While Johns Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic (among others) have long been destinations for wealthy foreigners in search of top-notch medical care, locales as disparate as Peru and Malaysia now offer Americans access to sparkling facilities, top-notch surgeons and, time permitting, vacation-type activities in exotic areas.

Medical tourism has long been associated with patients wanting low-cost plastic surgery. Venezuela, in particular, has become well-known for quality, relatively cheap cosmetic procedures. But with the number of uninsured rising yearly in the United States, patients needing critical procedures and having to pay out-of-pocket are looking overseas. Countries like India and Thailand are touting world-class medical care accessible for a fraction of the price in the United States. Heart bypass surgery, for example, costs $176,835 retail in the United States. The same procedure performed in India, however, runs about $10,000.

The American Medical Association referred questions from United Press International about medical tourism to the American College of Surgeons, which said it did not have a position on medical tourism.

The increasing cost of medical procedures in the United States is shifting the 'typical' medical tourist from a wealthy person in search of a bargain on elective cosmetic surgery to average Americans who have reached the point of last resort.

'We have to recognize that this country pays twice as much per capita for healthcare than any other country in the world and our life expectancy is less than many other countries,' said E. Andrew Balas, a professor in the College of Health Sciences at Old Dominion University in Virginia.

'Our healthcare providers have little or no competition resulting in monopolistic, ego-driven, self-serving, self-indulgent `health` care suppliers with no regard for their real customer -- the paying employer,' said Bonnie Girssom Blackley, benefits director for Blue Ridge Paper Products.

Medical tourism agencies -- companies that connect patients with doctors abroad and take care of travel arrangements -- tout the fact that many foreign doctors are U.S.-trained as proof that care abroad can rival care at home. While the American medical education system is the 'gold standard internationally,' according to Evan Falchuk, the president of Best Doctors, an international company that compiles a database from peer reviews, Americans are not familiar with other institutions that train world class doctors.

Arnold Milstein, chief physician at Mercer Health & Benefits and the medical director of the Pacific Business Group on Health, said that he had been approached by 'several innovative large American employers' about feasibility of certain elective, or non-urgent, procedures. According to Milstein, three of those companies were in the Fortune 500.

Based in North Carolina, Blue Ridge Paper Products, a 2,100-employee business with an on-site medical center, recently sent its first employee to India for treatment through a medical tourism agency called IndUShealth.

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