MONTCLAIR, N.J.

HEALTH CARE today provides one of the great paradoxes of our time. Breakthroughs in genetics, biotechnology, stem-cell research and transplant technology have enabled us to live longer than any generation in recorded human history. But the newest and greatest medical miracles — heart-bypass surgery, LASIK eye treatments, cochlear implants and hip replacements — don’t come cheap.

Presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and Barack Obama all claim that their health-care plans can make medical help affordable and accessible to the broad mass of Americans. But even as they debate government solutions, Americans are taking a uniquely market-driven approach to their medical treatment. In 2006, over 150,000 of us boarded planes to India, the Philippines and Eastern Europe to get hip transplants, heart surgery and dental work.

This number is sure to grow as more of our citizens discover the eye-popping medical-cost savings overseas recently described in Forbes magazine and elsewhere. A $55,000 valve replacement in the U.S. runs $13,000 in Cyprus’s American Heart Institute. In Malaysia, Americans can save $80,000 on a liver transplant and $40,000 on hip-replacement surgery. In Istanbul, the standard U.S. $69,000 price tag for surgical oncology performed by a staff affiliated with Harvard Medical International is reduced to $14,000. In the Philippines, Americans can save tens of thousands of dollars on kidney transplants and bypass surgery. South American dentists undercut U.S. dentists by 20 to 50 percent. Knee-replacement surgery that runs $30,000 in the U.S. costs $6,500 in India. (Cuba’s hospitals did not make any “10 Best” lists, in spite of the plug from Michael Moore’s movie Sicko.)

Practitioners in the U.S. claim that medical service at such low prices must be inferior. But the Joint Commission International, which rigorously inspects hospitals around the world as its parent organization does in the United States, has accredited over 125 hospitals in 23 countries, and expects that number to double soon. Noted Indian hip surgeon Dr. Vijay Bose says that Indian hospitals are simply charging the “appropriate” amount, while U.S. medical costs are “artificially boosted” by malpractice premiums and lawsuits, among other factors. (During the next candidates’ debate, someone should ask trial-lawyer extraordinaire John Edwards how his plan would limit damages from malpractice lawsuits.)

Surprisingly, medical treatment in some countries surpasses that offered in the United States. For instance, doctors in Europe and India have more extensive experience than U.S. doctors using “hip resurfacing,” a long-lasting hip-replacement procedure which preserves a greater portion of the thigh bone. And many foreign countries’ scientific research could very likely generate treatments that would be available in those countries first. An Israeli-Thai company, TheraVitae, is developing an adult-stem-cell therapy for severe heart-disease sufferers. The medical schools and institutes in Chennai, India, are engaged in intensive research in stem-cell research, nanotechnology, tissue engineering, gene therapy and research on curing diabetes.

Predictably, American companies are beginning to encourage their employees to travel to India and other countries for medical procedures, Business Insurance magazine reports. Bonnie Blackley, benefits director at Canton, N.C.-based Blue Ridge Paper Products, said she uses a company named IndUShealth to arrange travel for her employees to India for more cost-effective medical treatment.

As more Americans seek out foreign medical treatment experts, expect fees for major joint-replacement and heart procedures to drop. Daniel J. Snyder of Singapore’s Parkway Holdings hospital chain in Singapore has stated that “the cost of delivering health care in the U.S. will have to come down.” Already the Black Hills Surgery Center, based in Rapid City, S.D., plans to offer knee and hip replacements at half the cost of prices elsewhere in the United States.

The number of Americans taking advantage of global health care should rise yearly. Americans are inveterate bargain hunters, and global health care now enables them to comparison shop for medical procedures on the Internet. And Americans are no strangers to globe-trotting — over 40 million of us traveled or lived offshore in 2006. Some savvy countries are wisely packaging sightseeing vacations with medical-travel trips. Imagine visiting Thailand for a cataract operation and also spending a week on its beaches, or enjoying a safari after undergoing cosmetic surgery in South Africa.

No doubt some hospitals and doctors here might not welcome the inevitable price cutting that could result from the international competition for customers. Pharmaceutical companies have been decidedly negative about Americans’ buying cheaper prescription drugs in Mexico and Canada.

Perhaps we can invite our politicians to sign a pledge that their proposed medical-health systems will in no way prohibit Americans from seeking cheaper and better health care abroad. They should do so enthusiastically. After all, for years they have been lecturing us about how open international competition results in cheaper cars, plasma TVs and DVDs. We can only expect the globalization of health care to be equally beneficial.

More importantly, presidential aspirants must assure us that as they design the next great American health-care system, they will heed the advice the Hippocratic Oath imparts to all medical practitioners: “Do no harm.”

Michael G. Zey is a professor at Montclair State University School of Business, in Montclair, N.J., and the author of the books Ageless Nation, The Future Factor and Seizing the Future.