On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 10:55 AM, Robert Naiman <[email protected]> wrote: > > what if someone would organize a project to promote "responsible > medical tourism"? the idea would be to promote medical tourism to > either 1) a place or places where the locals do get health care and/or > 2) a > place or places where the dollars that come in from foreigners > for health > care are leveraged to cross-subsidize health > care for the locals. >
These things always sound great in the abstract. Cuba probably comes closest to what you are talking about. They are famous for providing good medical for their people. And people from outside Cuba can come and get medical care, and (in theory at least) that goes to subsidize the Cuban people. (Of course people from outside Cuba who can't afford to pay even Cuban are also sometimes treated in Cuba - but that is different from medical tourism to Cuba.) However, the clinics that treat tourists in Cuba offer treatments that are not available to most Cubans - available only to top government official. So even this best case scenario has its problems. I'll leave it people more familiar with Cuba than I am with whether on net the Cuban people are better off with medical tourists than without them. Another case is Costa Rica that offers something along the lines of a Universal Single Payer health system for the people of Costa Rica that covers very basic care and then those who can afford it buy supplemental plans. U.S. citizens with at least $1,000 a month (which most but not all people on Social Security have) can legally move to Costa Rica and buy into that medical system for $50 a month. Again I'll leave it those who know more about the overall effects than I do if this is a gain or a loss for ordinary Costa Ricans. At any rate, I think these are two best case examples. If a more detailed look at them says medical tourism works well for either the people of Cuba or the people of Costa Rica (most people I mean) then you have a good suggestion. If neither works, then it is something to be very careful of before going forward. > -- > Robert Naiman > Policy Director > Just Foreign Policy > www.justforeignpolicy.org > [email protected] > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l -- Facebook: Gar Lipow Twitter: GarLipow Solving the Climate Crisis web page: SolvingTheClimateCrisis.com Grist Blog: http://grist.org/author/gar-lipow/ Online technical reference: http://www.nohairshirts.com _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
