She did not get banded, she had a bypass. And as long as you do your homework beforehand and find a good PCP or Internist to do your care after... you should be ok. For the record, this coworker tried for 8 years to get insurance to cover surgery, finally was able to find an out of country situation she felt confident in and did her research first. When you have a family of 4 young children, 1 parent working full time and that parent is morbidly obese and unhealthy... yeah, it can be worth it to save a few grand and A LOT of heartache and hassle with insurance companies. She's lost 108 lbs in 10 months and can play with her daughters again.
I'm sorry, maybe I am taking your comment wrong... but to some folks, a couple grand is A LOT. And knowing now 2 people who have had very safe, successful WLS procedures done out of the country... I think it is a very reasonable decision to make, again so long as you do your homework. I'm not talking about finding the cheapest bidder- in those cases you usually get what you don't pay for.
