I'll leave you with these questions:
Would YOU hire a PLUMBER to do a ROOT CANAL?
Then WHY would you want an ECONOMIST (and a 'free-trader' at that) to design your HEALTHCARE SYSTEM.
"The doctor is in . . . Bangkok; Why don’t we globalize American healthcare?" by Dean Baker | August 2, 2009
What, wrecking the world economy wasn't enough?
WITH THE RISING cost of healthcare now atop the national agenda, one theme rings like a frustrating refrain: healthcare is special, so the tools we use to fix normal economic problems don’t apply. What good is mass production in confronting the complexities of the body? How can cost-benefit analysis grasp the unfixable value of a human life?
There is at least one tenet of modern economic policy, however, that we are excluding from the healthcare debate at our peril: globalization. It may seem bizarre to suggest that globalization could somehow improve healthcare....
Yup, exactly what I was thinking.
But globalization, carefully applied, could reduce costs in the short term and create pressure for the bigger changes our system desperately needs.
We already had that about two years ago.
The guy was attacked, and no one talks about his finest film (by far).
We could allow more foreign-born doctors to work in the United States, for instance. We could encourage the “medical tourism” that allows Americans to have major procedures performed in other countries, and we could permit Medicare beneficiaries to buy into the lower-cost healthcare systems of other wealthy countries.
Then WHY NOT PICK a SINGLE-PAYER PLAN!?
Each of these offers enormous opportunities for savings in the healthcare sector and benefits for the economy....
It will not be easy to globalize healthcare. The interest groups that oppose government cost-containment measures will be just as vigorous in their objections to increased international competition, if the result is to reduce their income. There are also real problems in ensuring quality control.
Yeah, but richer, agenda-pushers won't have to worry.
But if we get it right, a globalized healthcare system would not only lower costs, but could even bring health benefits. Canada, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom all pay roughly half as much per person for their healthcare as the United States, yet all these countries enjoy longer life expectancies than ours.
Oh, so he has seen Sicko?
This implies that there are enormous potential gains to the US economy, and to American patients, in opening up this sector to the world.
Do OTHER COUNTRIES HAVE a SAY, or.....?
The economic idea driving globalization is simple: that the United States - and the world - gain when goods and services are produced in the country that can provide the best quality at the lowest price. Just as we benefit from allowing goods and services to flow freely over the border between Pennsylvania and New York, we also benefit from allowing them to flow across international borders.
The reality of globalization is often less beneficent than the textbook picture. It has reduced wages for a large segment of the US workforce; it has often meant dreadful working conditions and environmental degradation in the developing world. Nonetheless, there are real gains: we pay far less for our clothes, our cars, our computer service calls than if the United States was a closed economy. Costs go down, and our standard of living, on balance, goes up.
Ah, the insults I live upon, yum.
Globalization has been conspicuously missing in healthcare policy debates, however. Even the economists who normally push a free-trade agenda have been silent, largely because there has been a tendency to conceive of healthcare narrowly as a domestic issue. There is some logic to this narrow view: in a healthcare emergency, we need immediate treatment, not assistance from someone halfway around the world.
Yeah, thanks for the insult. It's a LOGICAL point of view, but "narrow."
Nonetheless, there are some obvious and important ways in which the healthcare sector can benefit from increased globalization....
Did he just say but?
To allow hospitals to hire well-trained doctors from Mexico, India, and other developing countries, the government would need to eliminate certain protectionist barriers, such as the requirement that an employer first try to hire a US citizen....
NO WORLD, we are NOT RACISTS!!!!
"However," WE OBJECT to this BLATANT UNFAIRNESS and GLOBALIST GARBAGE! Why not SERVE YOUR OWN POOR PEOPLE? What are American kids training for then? Never mind that they are mostly Jewish.
So what's up, the Jews treat themselves and the elites while the imports treat the rest of us? I am NOT a RACIST, and IF YOU READ MY BLOG YOU WOULD SEE!!!
All the illegals would HAVE HEALTHCARE, no questions asked like OUR 9/11 HEROES from GROUND ZERO got it in CUBA!!! Hey, maybe the CUBANS could SEND SOME DOCTORS HERE for FREE like they do IN SO MANY PLACES!!!
Oh, that's right, the administration rejected that after Katrina.
YOU SEE what is going on here, no?
Some GLOBALIST PUKE PROMOTING his GLOBALIST PLOT!
To compensate for the inevitable brain drain from developing countries, we could impose a modest tax on the gross income of foreign-trained doctors in the United States for their home countries to spend on training doctors who stay. A 10 percent tax on one US-based doctor’s salary would almost certainly support the training of two doctors in most developing countries, and ensure that countries sending doctors to the US would also see an improvement in the quality of care at home.
UNREAL!!! Absolutely UNREAL!
Yeah, SCREW YOU PEOPLE in FAR-AWAY LANDS, and let's F*** the ones who come here by IMPOSING TAXES!!!!!
The next important way to gain from globalization is to move some procedures overseas. Today this practice goes by the slightly pejorative term “medical tourism,” but behind that nickname is an important and growing trend that can offer real benefits.
Tell it to the Organ Harvesting Racket!
Facilities in developing countries such as Thailand and India can perform many major medical procedures for a fraction of the cost in the United States.
Then why don't we just use their model?
These facilities are set up to meet Western standards of care; in many cases they are equipped with the most modern medical equipment. For some medical procedures, the savings over an American procedure can easily cover the cost of airfare and hotel bills for the patient and several family members....
So I guess GLOBAL WARMING is NO LONGER a CONCERN, huh?
Better not be! A Planed Pregnancy?
If US policymakers embraced rather than ignored medical tourism, the government could create a process for certifying facilities in other countries to ensure the quality of care....
Which "government?" The AmeriKan government? Just WHOOOOO the HELL does THIS GUY think we are?
Sounds like the DICTATOR of the WORLD, no?
Like I said STOO-PID IDEAS!!!!!!!!!!!
To ensure that the host countries also benefit, the US government can insist that developing countries impose taxes on medical tourism, and use the proceeds to improve their own healthcare systems.
Oh!!!! The HYPOCRISY and CHUTZPAH!!
Oh, the elite of my country have been hanging out with Zionist Israelis for far too long!
The third way that globalization can help healthcare is by allowing Medicare beneficiaries to buy into national health systems overseas.
Why not just GET A GOOD ONE GOING HERE?
Currently, tens of millions of current or future Medicare beneficiaries have close family or emotional ties to countries with more efficient healthcare systems, and in many cases may want to retire to these countries.
Now THAT is a RETIREMENT worth living for!!!
However, at present their Medicare benefits are of no use outside of the United States. Medicare beneficiaries moving to a foreign country are left to make healthcare arrangements for themselves, or return to America for any expensive procedure.
Depends on WHERE, doesn't it, liar?
So sick of the s***-shoveling liars!!!
It HURTS!!!!!
What if Medicare benefits could cross borders instead?
Why not? Every other f***ing thing does!
With portable healthcare, Americans might feel more liberated to retire abroad, enjoying comfortable lives in lower-cost countries and generating enormous savings for the US government.
This is SOOOO OFFENSIVE!
Do you get the feeling this guy WANTS to GET RID OF YOU, American?
And GENERATE SAVINGS for a GOVERNMENT that has passed around $25 TRILLION to bank looters?
Yeah, the INSULTS of the Boston Globe are quite extraordinary.
The cost of healthcare abroad is so much lower that the U.S. government could even offer a premium to participating countries - say, 10 percent above that nation’s per-person healthcare costs. Medicare beneficiaries and the US government could split the remaining savings, which would still be substantial.... Having a large segment of our retired population living overseas may not be desirable in the long term, but it is almost certainly better than letting their runaway healthcare costs wreck our economy.
And HOW are THOSE COUNTRIES FEELING about this?
I can SMELL the RANK ARROGANCE over the computer, readers!
Of course, it is OKAY if WARS and BANKS RUIN OUR ECONOMY!
Yes, it SURE DOES LOOK LIKE he wants to GET RID OF US ALL, doesn't it?
Hop on a plane to visit grandma so the fascistas can fondle you?
There will be many objections to increased globalization of healthcare.
Damn right!
Some people may object to being treated by immigrant doctors, no matter how highly qualified they may be.
NO! There the ASSHOLES GO AGAIN!!! INPLYING "HATE" where there is none, although I feel a welling up for the agenda-pushing s***-bag!!!!!!!!!!!
And the thought of people flying around the world for major surgery is somewhat offensive on its face - if you need healthcare, you’d like to think that you could get it near where you live.
Buuuuuuttttt.......!!!!!!!!!!!
The AMA and the other interest groups will object just as strongly to potential income losses due to globalization as they do to potential income losses due to President Obama’s healthcare plan.
Yeah, now it's the greedy doctors. Pffft!
To counter this opposition, we need stronger voices among the experts. It would be helpful if my fellow economists would act like economists on this issue and start singing the praises of globalization.
Then HIT LOU DOBBS' SHOW! I'm sure he'd love to have a chat with you.
If economists denounced the doctors and others demanding special protections in the same way they denounced autoworkers seeking such protections, it would go a long way toward moving the debate forward.
All I can think of is the Jew and his 'hate" laws, not the car workers.
The goal of globalizing healthcare, of course, is not to send Americans around the world in search of healthcare.
Why does he say "of course?"
The WHOLE ARTICLE has been ONE LONG GET OUTTA HERE!
Our real goal should be to fix the US system to provide quality at a reasonable price.
Now he's just OFFENSIVE, OFFENSIVE!!!!!!!
Globalization is best seen as a stopgap measure: a way to save money by taking advantage of more efficient foreign healthcare systems, while providing incentives for retooling our own.
I'm glad this article is ending because I've had it with the insults. I gotta hop a flight and go see my Cuban doctor.
If it works, it could increase the pressure for reform by making the inefficiencies of the US system more apparent.
You know, one insult after another.
It could also put much-needed downward pressure on prices in the United States. If the gap between the cost of major medical procedures performed in America and other countries continues to grow, fewer people might have those procedures performed here. Highly paid medical specialists will either accept lower fees or go with much less work. The same logic will apply to other high-cost areas of the system.
Globalization offers enormous opportunities: it allows Americans to escape a broken healthcare system and generates new pressures to fix it. If done right, our trading partners will benefit as well.
And IF NOT?
Because, honestly, there is NOTHING this government does right.
WAITING 45 MINUTES in a POST OFFICE LINE while INCOMPETENTS babble and the rates rise!
This may be a circuitous route to a system that provides high quality care for everyone, but it may also be the only route.
And WHO will be COLLECTING the CASH, that's what I want to know.
