Dunno how much $$ y'all have, but I've seen more than one news article on surgery tourism. Basically, there are countries out there with good medical systems that have medical costs low enough that for significant surgery you can go there, get surgery, recuperate, and come back, all for significantly less $$ than you'd spend on the same thing here.
And, I was talking to my sister (two bulging disks) a couple of years ago, and she was telling me that there are disk replacements available in Europe that aren't approved here.
I'm not a "deregulate everything" guy, but the FDA seems to have become a marketing arm of the drug and medical equipment manufacturers -- they limit competition and make regulations that drive up prices, seemingly purely for the benefit of the drug companies.