Arguably, the most important single way to promote individual freedom in any economy is through the mechanism of free trade. After all, while government bureaucrats love to manage and play favorites in the economy, their ability to do so is limited dramatically if actors in that economy can choose to leave when regulations become too onerous. That is the basic premise of the Health Care Choice Act which would allow Americans to purchase individual health insurance policies across state lines.

In today's Wall Street Journal, Jagdish Bhagwati, a professor at Columbia University and Sandip Madan, the CEO of Global Healthnet discuss the importance of free trade in health care and four "modes" in which a free trade climate can be viewed. The modes are as follows: 

Mode 1 refers to "arm's length" services that are typically found online: The provider and the user of services do not have to be in physical proximity. Mode 2 relates to patients going to doctors elsewhere. Mode 3 refers mainly to creating and staffing hospitals in other countries. Mode 4 encompasses doctors and other medical personnel going to where the patients are. All modes promise varying, and substantial, cost savings.

Arm's-length transactions can save a significant fraction of administrative expenditures (estimated by experts at $500 billion annually) by shifting claims processing and customer service offshore. Nearly half of such savings are already in hand. Foreign doctors providing telemedicine offer yet unrealized savings. We estimate that the savings in health-care costs could easily reach $70 billion-$75 billion.

Mode 2, where U.S. patients go to foreign medical facilities, was considered an exotic idea 15 years ago. Now this is a reality known as "medical tourism." Today, many foreign hospitals and physicians are offering world-class services at a fraction of the U.S. prices. Costly procedures with short convalescence periods, which today include heart and joint replacement surgeries, are candidates for such treatment abroad. By our estimates, 30 such procedures, costing about $220 billion in 2005, could have been "exported."

Mode 3, with hospitals established abroad, will primarily offer our doctors and hospitals considerable opportunity to earn abroad. Of course, the establishment of foreign-owned medical facilities in the U.S. is also possible, and could lead to price reductions by offering competition to the U.S. medical industry.

Mode 4 concerns doctors and other medical providers going where the patients are. It offers substantial cost savings, since the earnings of foreign doctors are typically lower than those of comparable suppliers in the U.S.

But the importation of doctors is even more critical in meeting supply needs than in providing lower costs. According to the 2005 Census, the U.S. had an estimated availability of 2.4 doctors per 1,000 population (the number was 3.3 in leading developed countries tracked by the OECD.

Free trade in health care seems to be improving whereas overall freedom in health care seems to be regressing. Hopefully trade can grow and act again on a check against government meddling.