It's not because our health service is poor - in fact, it's excellent for general healthcare and I literally trust it with my life. The country (as in you, me, everyone who pays taxes) sadly just can't afford to treat very expensive edge cases, or send people for highly expensive experimental procedures, without jeopardising the sustainability of the service for others. Conversely in America, if you have the money, you get the treatment.
Meanwhile for every case you can find for someone traveling to America, there can be an identical case found for someone traveling to Europe.
http://www.kulr8.com/news/local/Cerebral-Palsy-Fundraiser-10...
You've found 1, which hardly equates to "every".
Do you have any actual data? I'd be curious to see what the real difference is between "them" coming "here" vs. "us" going "there".
My point in finding one was that sensational stories about fund raising for medical treatment make easy news filler. Linking to any of them is meaningless!
America has a medicore health care system. We excel in some experimental treatments, and have some great medical centers for those with money.
Meanwhile we rank equal to Cuba on life expectancy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expec...
Many of the inbound medical tourists to the U.S. are coming from countries that don't have nationalized health care or are coming because their nationalized health care system is paying most of the cost of their care and trip. Relatively few are buying their way into better care vs. a nationalized health system.
Also, the number of inbound U.S. medical tourists is around 70,000[1], while the number of outbound U.S. medical tourists is around 650,000[2] (surgery dominates). There are many factors involved here, but as a basic matter, it would be simpler to say that people leave the U.S. for medical care much more than they visit for it.
[1] 2008 number: http://www.forbes.com/2008/05/25/health-hospitals-care-forbe...
[2] 2009 number: http://www.tampabay.com/news/health/article1079824.ece