Sunday, March 9, 2008

Outsourcing Health Care

Free trade is great. And, while the principle of comparative advantage makes it logical for nations to specialize in those industries that are most competitive, this has not been the case for health care until very recently.

Now, according to recent news reports, Singapore is looking to become the low cost provider for health care services. I'm all for this, and as long as people are able to travel in order to attain better, more cost effective care, governments can only get so draconian in their policies.

I wonder though if the US couldn't compete with Singapore as a provider for low-cost care if it weren't for onerous government regulations. Unfortunately, it looks like Singapore's "comparative advantage" is simply having politicians that understand how markets work and have not overregulated the industry to the point where basic health care is unaffordable.