EclectEcon

I didn't realize I had written so much on medical tourism in the past, but there have been three or four postings on the topic (see here, here, and here for example). But the fact remains that at current, gubmnt-set prices (mostly zero), we have a shortage of physicians in Canada. The result, of course, anytime a price is set below the market price, is that some of those potential purchasers who would otherwise be rationed out of the system or who do not wish to join the seemingly interminable queue, look for quasi-market solutions; they look for some other way to receive the services, even if they have to pay for them. And in health economics, one very attractive solution is medical tourism — travel to some exotic locale during a season when the weather there is much better than in Canada and as an aside while you're there, have a medical procedure carried out.

After my most recent posting, which listed some links for medical tourism, Lauren H sent me a message with several more links:

I have been working on the wikipedia page on medical tourism lately:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tourism

CBS News did a very informative story on medical tourism in 2005:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/21/60minutes/main689998.shtml

Another great article was from the University of Delaware's UDaily:
http://www.udel.edu/PR/UDaily/2005/mar/tourism072505.html

Time Magazine wrote an article just this year:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1196429,00.html

I expect I am being unduly risk averse, and I have no idea how I would respond if I really wanted to have a medical procedure but would otherwise have to wait two years or spend tens of thousands of dollars, but no matter what Lauren and Jack have told me, I might tend to be somewhat hesitant. But at the price differentials listed in some of the above articles, and if the length of the queue continues to grow in Canada, who knows?