Free Trade in Health Care: The Gains from Globalized Medicare and Medicaid
Contributing Organization(s): Center for Economic and Policy Research
Author(s)/Creator(s): Dean Baker; Hye Jin Rho
Publishing Date: 2009-10-06
Issue Areas: Government Reform; Health and Medicine
Ownership/Rights Info: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Generic
File info: 0 pages; 269.05 KB file size
The huge gap between the cost of health care in the United States and the cost in other countries with comparable health care outcomes suggests the potential for substantial gains from trade. This paper describes one mechanism for taking advantage of these gains -- through a globalization of the country's Medicare and Medicaid programs. The projections in this paper suggest that the country's long-term budget situation would be substantially improved if beneficiaries of these two programs over the age of 65 were allowed to take advantage of the lower-cost health care available in other countries (that also have high life expectancies than the U.S.). This could also allow them to enjoy much higher retirement incomes than they would otherwise receive.
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Intended Audience: Advocates; General Public; Legislators/Legislative Aids; Policy Professionals; Researchers
Type/Format: Evaluation; Policy Brief
Language code: English
Type/Format: Evaluation; Policy Brief
Language code: English
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