Trade in healthcare and health insurance services: WTO/GATS as a supporting actor (?)

Abstract

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Trends and structural shifts in health tourism: Evidence from seasonal time-series data on health-related travel spending by Canada during 1970–2010

“…Around the time when GATS went into effect, 38 countries made full commitment to liberalize trade in medical and dental services, 21 countries committed to liberalize trade in midwife and nurse services, and 31 committed to liberalize trade in hospital services under Model 2 (Secretariat, 1998). By 2009, the number of countries that made full commitment to the above sectors rose to 49, 24, and 50, respectively (Adlung, 2010). The effect of GATS on the volume of health tourism activities is unclear due to the lack of empirical studies.…”

International Trade and Health Care in Brazil: An Unpredicted Tale Threatening Health Care Entitlement?

“…A second search was conducted for any trade policy reviews since 1994; we used the terms “trade policy review” and “Brazil,” applying the same exclusion and inclusion criteria from the first search. Although the schedules of commitment are the main sources of information regarding countries’ choices for exemptions on the GATS agreement, 15,16 the trade policy reviews describe any revision of commitments, so they can also be used to assess how trade policy has changed over time. 15,16 In this search, we excluded 7 documents due to the relevance criteria (all related to the telecommunications sector) and another 2 for not being in the public domain; 14 documents were selected for analysis: 7 schedules of commitments and 7 trade policy reviews.…”

When actions do not match aspirations - comparison of the European Union policy claims against what has been negotiated for health services, trade and investment

“…We already have research and analysis in relation to tobacco control [ 1 – 6 ], alcohol [ 7 , 8 ], food [ 9 , 10 ], and access to and prices of medicines [ 11 , 12 ]. Health services have been analysed in relation to World Trade Organisation General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) [ 13 – 15 ]. We have prior research on how new generation trade agreements influence national and local policy space for health promotion and health services regulation [ 15 , 16 ].…”

“…Trade-related health impacts are usually implicitly or explicitly, based on expectations of welfare impacts from economic growth as result of more predictable and non-discriminatory regulatory context [ 23 , 24 ]. While health services are increasingly considered as tradable services, they have not been at the core of trade policy debates in services trade [ 13 ]. However, what is perceived as “improvement” in liberalisation of services, regulatory cooperation or intellectual property rights by trade negotiators and export industries, can be a “problem” for national and local health policy priorities, and obligations to ensure a high level of health protection in all policies.…”