Unhealthy health tourism
08 MAY 2008 – Generally, health tourism is a good thing both for patients and health care providers as it gives more options in terms of quality and price and allows providers to compete for a larger pool of customers by improving their services. But this conclusion depends fundamentally on the institutional features of health care systems. Under certain circumstances, cross-border competition can lead to rather unfortunate outcomes. And a good example is the health tourism which is currently taking place in the UK.

Almost a third of NHS hospitals do not charge foreigners for medical treatment, regardless of whether they are entitled to free health care or not. The fact that there is a large number of hospitals which do not investigate the immigration status of their patients and their entitlement to free health care attracts patients from all over the world who often seek costly and complicated health treatments. This is true not only for the foreigners who already reside in the UK, but also for those who are willing to travel to the UK a couple of times a year in order to get a free surgery.

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