Like a lot of folks from Southern Oregon, Jim Krois has scheduled a trip to Mexico during our rainy season.

Most travelers head south this time of year to get a break from winter weather. Krois has a different motive. He needs hip-replacement surgery, and he can have it done at a hospital in Puerto Vallarta for a quarter of what it would cost him in the Rogue Valley.

“They told me it would cost $50,000 here,” said Krois, who lost his health insurance in 2008 when he was laid off from his job as a photographer with the Grants Pass Daily Courier. “It will cost $12,000 in Mexico.”

The 61-year-old man from Williams is one of a growing number of “medical tourists” — people who travel abroad for health care they can no longer afford at home. One study estimated some 750,000 Americans left the country for medical treatment in 2007.

Many medical travelers stick to the simple stuff, such as getting a cavity filled by a dentist in Mexico. Others, like Krois, go abroad for major procedures — an artificial hip, a new knee or even coronary artery bypass surgery.

Their numbers are expected to grow as health care costs rise and more people lose their health insurance. A 2008 study by Deloitte Consulting predicted medical tourists could number 6 million by 2010.

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