Liz Weston

The notion that health care outside the U.S. could be good as well as cheap is a foreign one to many Americans.

Kathleen Peddicord frequently hears from such skeptics as founder of Live and Invest Overseas, a site for people curious about living abroad. Actual expats like her, however, tell of good-quality care at a fraction of the U.S. price. Treatment for a motorbike accident in Panama cost her $20. Emergency dental surgery that might cost $10,000 or more in the U.S. was $4,500 in Paris. In many countries, medications that would require a prescription in the States are available directly from licensed pharmacies at low prices, thanks to government subsidies or regulation.

“The health care in a lot of places around the world is very good, as good as in the United States,” says Peddicord, who currently divides her time between Paris and Panama. “Some places, it is better.”

In my latest for the Associated Press, why reduced medical costs could prompt Americans to relocate.