Medical Tourism

Alex Tabarrok:

We have all heard about medical tourism to India, Singapore or Thailand, places where patients can enjoy high quality and low prices. But do you know about medical tourism to the United States? By some estimates, around 400,000 people travel to the United States for medical treatment every year and the big surprise is that for tourists U.S. health care prices can be very low! Canadians coming to the United States can get a knee replacement for less than half of what Americans pay and at a price not much more than they would pay in India. I learned this from John Goodman’s very interesting new book, Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis (this is an Independent Institute book where I am director of research).

Consumers Are Ready to Adopt Mobile Health Faster than the Health Industry is Prepared to Adapt, Finds PwC Study on Global mHealth Adoption

pwc:

Widespread adoption of mobile technology in healthcare, or mHealth, is now viewed as inevitable in both developed and emerging markets around the world, but the pace of adoption will likely be led by emerging markets and lag consumer demand, according to a new global study conducted for PwC Global Healthcare by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

The ground breaking study, Emerging mHealth: paths for growth, found that consumers have high expectations for mHealth, particularly in developing economies as mobile cellular subscriptions there become ubiquitous. In emerging markets, consumers perceive mHealth as a way to increase access to healthcare while patients in developed markets see it as a way to improve the convenience, cost and quality of healthcare.

According to PwC, if the promise of mHealth is realized by consumers, the impact on healthcare delivery could be significant and fundamentally alter traditional relationships within the healthcare industry. The use of mHealth and speed of adoption will be determined in each country by stakeholders’ response to mHealth as a disruptive innovation to overcome structural impediments and align interests around patients’ needs and expectations.

My Question for Wisconsin’s US Senate Candidates: Tammy Baldwin, Jeff Fitzgerald, Eric Hovde, Mark Neumann and Tommy Thompson

The National Security Agency said this week that it would violate our privacy to say how many Americans have been spied upon.

Warrant less wiretapping (FISA) just passed the House. President Obama’s kill list includes Americans and courageously, Rand Paul wants warrants before drones can take our photo.

If elected, will you vote to uphold our constitutional right to due process?

Candidate websites: Tammy Baldwin, Jeff Fitzgerald, Eric Hovde, Mark Neumann and Tommy Thompson