Medical Tourism

In his excellent econ blog, Dean Baker remarks on “medical tourism,” the practice of going overseas for cheaper medical care. “Extremely wasteful,” he calls it. Wasteful in a specific sense: it’s presumably cheaper for the patient, of course, since even including the price of plane ticket and hotel, he still gets treatment cheaper than he would get in the US. Baker’s point is that the price discrepancy exists because of trade barriers that keep other professionals from practicing in the US.

It isn’t clear to me how serious Baker is about this. He doesn’t look like a free-market libertarian. Does he really want to get rid of all trade barriers in professional services? Or is he just trying to cock as snook against the seeming inconsistencies of mainstream free trade advocates? Obviously I suspect the latter—but at least I would like to see him step up to the plate and spell out in detail just how trade liberalization in services might work.

Meanwhile, there is something important going on here. My friend John, who spends his life in a wheelchair, has been saying for months now that Medicare could save a bunch of money if people like himself could haul off for their treatment to Poland, or Cyprus, or wherever.

UPDATE: I should do my homework better. In the very next post Baker addresses some of my concerns.