W/high health care cost, can't blame this Minnesota couple for driving 2000 mile

[theking]

...to Molar City or other elderly folks coming as far as Canada:

"The town’s lack of amenities did not matter to retiree Eugene Richardson, 76, who drove 2,000 miles from Isle, Minnesota, with his wife, Carol, so they could both get treatment at Sani Dental Group, the town’s biggest operator."

Welcome to Molar City, Mexico, The Dental Mecca America’s Health Care Costs Built



The billboards that line the stretch of California’s Interstate 8 headed toward Los Algodones make it clear travelers are not on their way to a typical tourism destination.

The signs that beckon Americans as they head west toward Andrade, California’s narrow border crossing, aren’t for resorts or beaches but for dental clinics offering bridges and root canals at half what they cost in the United States. Dental care has become big business here over the last two decades, so much so that American visitors have taken to calling it “Molar City.” An estimated 600 dentists operate out of hundreds of clinics that fill the 1-square-mile town, which is home to fewer than 5,000 permanent residents.

When HuffPost visited in October, the busy season for dental tourism was just beginning. Americans, mostly retirees, were already walking the maze of streets, visiting gift shops for local handicrafts and pharmacies for low-cost prescription drugs.Los Algodones is the northernmost town in Baja California and in Mexico itself, bordered by California to the north and by Arizona to the east. It’s just a 14-mile drive from the airport in Yuma, Arizona.

The clinics are the main reason Americans and, to a lesser extent, Canadians, travel to this village. There’s not much else here. The few restaurants in town close early, and the nightlife consists of two strip clubs. The residents are poor, and these dental clinics aren’t for them. Although the medical tourism boom has provided jobs to many area residents, others hustle as jaladores for tips from clinics and other businesses for luring pedestrians to them.

The town’s lack of amenities did not matter to retiree Eugene Richardson, 76, who drove 2,000 miles from Isle, Minnesota, with his wife, Carol, so they could both get treatment at Sani Dental Group, the town’s biggest operator.