Offshoring medical care, education and more ...

Speaking of offshoring (see previous postings), think that two of those safe localized, non-tradable occupations are in health care and education? Think again.

We have heard of medical tourism before, but the Economist thinks rising health care costs in the US be a boon to the developing world -- Medical tourism: Sun, sand and scalpels:

All this presents a fantastic business opportunity for those Asian countries, principally Thailand, Singapore and India, which have excellent private hospitals that are used to treating foreigners and where costs are a fraction of those in rich countries. “Medical tourism” is booming as patients look abroad for cheap, fast treatment, often combined with a holiday afterwards.
. . .
To reassure foreign patients, many hospitals are seeking accreditation from the Joint Commission International (JCI), the international arm of the body that accredits American hospitals. Thailand's Bumrungrad and nine Singaporean hospitals already have JCI certificates. Raymond Chong, the boss of Bangkok Dusit's Samitivej Hospital, reckons it will be only a year or two before big American insurers and employers routinely offer patients lower premiums if they are prepared to travel to a foreign JCI-accredited hospital for surgery.

We've also heard about online tutoring for some time. But the technology is getting much better. Take, for example, TutorNet (Lending a mother’s touch to online tutoring around the world):

TutorNext uses an electronic classroom. A tutor overseas has a “white board,” where he or she writes down instructions for a student, as if using a chalkboard. Both teacher and student use headsets to communicate when going over problems.

The same technology could easily be used at the college level. And a number of universities are already putting course materials online.

Global wage competition hits professors and surgeons. What's next?

Well, how about this (from the New York Times - India’s Edge Goes Beyond Outsourcing:

increasingly the jobs of Western white-collar elites in fields as diverse as investment banking, aircraft engineering and pharmaceutical research have begun flowing to India and a few other developing countries.