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ABSTRACT
The industry of medical tourism has shown a recent surge in popularity among the middle-class citizens of developing nations. Specifically, the large volume of patients in the United States healthcare system seeking their medical care abroad is why many researchers are studying this emerging practice. There appears to be two major driving forces behind this growing trend, the first being the rise in costs of the domestic healthcare system, which itself has three major underlying causes: the current state of the health insurance system, the increased practicing of defensive medicine, and the rise of the medical consumerism attitude among patients. The second driving force would appear to be the globalization of healthcare, which besides making international travel easier and integrating worldwide communications, also drives down the costs of medical care abroad. Thus, medical tourism is the result of rising American healthcare costs in the context of healthcare globalization, and this practice has interesting implications for the healthcare landscape.
Key words: medical tourism, healthcare system, health insurance, defensive medicine, medical consumerism, globalization
INTRODUCTION
International medical travel is not a new concept in the global market, as it has historically involved the wealthy elite traveling to receive the best medical treatment for their illness. This was especially true of those who lived in developing countries where the healthcare system had not sufficiently advanced enough to be able to treat them. However, a new type of international medical traveler has newly emerged - the medical tourists, typically middle-class citizens of developing countries who seek medical treatment abroad, where it is likely to be cheaper and more accessible (Hopkins et al 2010). Medical tourism, also known as wellness tourism (Hopkins et al 2010) or cross-border healthcare (Chen and Wilson 2013), has been evolving ever since.
Medical tourism is now widely regarded to be the act of turning down medical services in one's own country and instead choosing to travel to foreign, often lesser developed countries in order to receive those same services at some advantage, typically a lower cost (Horowitz, Rosenweig, and Jones 2007). Indeed, there has been an increased interest in medical tourism due to its increasing popularity among the middle class. Hopkins et al (2010) found that the costs of domestic healthcare have risen...