Medical Tourism and Trade Liberalization

Frederic Erixson and L. Davis of ECIPE argue here that freeing trade ins services generally and medical services more particularly would generate huge returns. As they state, what is required is for liberalization of medical care provisions that would enable individuals to travel abroad to countries that would offer services at lower costs without compromising quality.

India's gains from medical tourism has been addressed here before and the primary argument was that due to the large savings possible, it would be a definite growth area. That piece adds to the fact that liberalization would assist low-income countries to retain medical personnel who travel abroad to make the best of their skills. I am unsure that this is a certainty because the push factors for these highly trained doctors and nurses are not related to inability to secure employment i the first instance. To my mind, medical tourism is useful because it would generate demand for more doctors from the countries providing the services and thereby create sufficient resources to facilitate the expansion of medical schools. this is valid because the ratio of doctors to the population inmost of these low-income countries is often very low.