I’ve been told time and time again that medical travel and tourism is under discussion at the highest policy-making levels of the U.S. government and have not doubted the assertion when I have heard it. Yet last week, I was briefly stumped when someone asked me for proof that medical tourism is important enough for Congress and the White House to be interested.

I pointed at hearings conducted by the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging in June 2006:

The Globalization of Health Care: Can Medical Tourism Reduce Health Care Costs?

… but my cynical correspondent pointed out that U.S. Senate committees conduct hearings all the time, perpetually gathering testimony on all manner of issues that they promptly forget about; and indeed, I had to acknowledge that there is to date no public sign of a government task force on medical tourism or any type of follow-up. The leadership of the Senate changed in late 2006 and committee staff has changed as well.

So I did a little more digging to back up my point and found that U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt has a very public curiosity about medical tourism and travel, and even discussed it on his own blog, as recently as April, after a trip to the Far East that included a stopover in Singapore. Of Singapore’s healthcare system, Leavitt had this to say:

“So, what about the quality you say? Aside from the statistics on life expectancy already cited, let me suggest we think about this. The Government of Singapore estimates that, in 2008, over 600,000 people, including many Americans, will engage in medical tourism. They will fly to Singapore to get their care at a fraction of the price. The Singaporean Government believes by 2012 the number will exceed a 1,000,000 people a year. In order to attract these people, they are transparent with both cost and quality outcomes. Patients have more information about care in Singapore than about care they would get from their local hospital. Hmmmm.”

Hmmmm, indeed.

During a trip to India in January, Leavitt blogged:

“I always meet interesting people on these trips. Another I’ll mention today is Dr. Pratap Reddy, M.D. He is a trained cardiologist who worked at the Missouri State Chest Hospital for about 10 years. He returned to India to set up private hospitals. His company, Apollo Hospitals Group, now has 46 hospitals. I want to write more about this later, because one of their hospitals’ trademark characteristics is they make their results public, and post their prices. They have results that rival the best U.S. hospitals, and their costs are a fraction of U.S. prices. Many of their patients are from other countries, part of India’s medical tourism initiative; more on this later.”

We’re still waiting for the “more, later,” part … but my point was made to the satisfaction of the fellow who wrote to me. Medical travel and tourism is a Cabinet-level policy issue.