title: How health insurance inhibits trade in health care.
abstract: A range of health care services are tradable, in that consumers can travel abroad for treatment. In this paper we first estimate the gains from trade. An international price comparison of fifteen procedures reveals that there could be savings of around 1.4 billion dollars annually even if only one in ten U.S. patients choose to undergo treatment abroad. We then identify a key impediment to realizing these gains: the nature of existing health insurance plans, which discriminate explicitly or implicitly against treatment abroad. We propose that coverage should be neutral to provider location and that reimbursement should include travel costs.
authors.affiliation: Development Research Group, World Bank in Washington, DC, USA.
authors.forename: Aaditya
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mattoo
authors.forename: Randeep
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rathindran
mesh_terms: D003132:Commerce / Q000191:economics*; D017046:Cost Savings; D003906:Developing Countries / Q000191:economics; D017048:Health Care Costs; D005102:Health Expenditures; D006296:Health Services / Q000191:economics*; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000191:economics; D006801:Humans; D019458:Insurance Coverage; D015273:Insurance Selection Bias; D007348:Insurance, Health; D038622:Internationality; D014195:Travel / Q000191:economics*; D014481:United States / Q000208:ethnology