Book Review - Who Killed Health Care?: America's $2 Trillion Medical Problem - and the Consumer-Driven Cure by Regina Herzlinger
Category Book Review Regina Herzlinger Who Killed Health Care?: America's $2 Trillion Medical Problem - and the Consumer-Driven Cure
One of the major problems facing America right now is the health care system as it currently exists. I felt that a bit of reading was in order to start to educate myself on the various views and proposed solutions. Regina Herzlinger takes the position that consumer-driven health care is the best solution in her book Who Killed Health Care?: America's $2 Trillion Medical Problem - and the Consumer-Driven Cure. While I think she makes some strong arguments (and while I think this is one of the better solutions), I think she's somewhat naive on a couple of points.
Contents:
Part 1 - Who Killed Health Care?: The Day Health Care Died
Part 2 - Death By A Thousand Cuts: Killer Number 1 - The Health Insurers; Killer Number 2 - The General Hospitals; Killer Number 3 - The Employers; Killer Number 4 - The U.S. Congress; Killer Number 5 - The Academics
Part 3 - The Right Medicine - Consumer-Driven Health Care: How It Works; Consumer-Driven Benefits - Lessons From Other Countries and Industries
Part 4 - How To Make It Happen - The Carrots, The Sticks, The Laws: The Carrots; The Sticks; A Bold New Consumer-Driven Health Care System
Notes; Index
Herzlinger uses the metaphor of a dead patient to explain the parts of the US Health Care system that "killed" him. "Jack Morgan" needed a kidney transplant, and had a donor (his daughter) all lined up. But all the "killers" conspired to contribute to his death. Insurers did so by delaying authorization for coverage of the procedure to increase their profit. Hospitals did so by hiding their prices, and then charging him the highest rates if he had the procedure without insurance coverage. Employers did so by restricting coverage choices to lower their costs of insuring their employees, even though they're using *your* money to buy the coverage. Congress contributed to Jack's death by thinking it knew better on how to spend money on his care than Jack did. Therefore, money only went in the direction Congress dictated. And finally, the academics played their part by dictating "smart policy" for heath care professionals, even though they had never been on the front-lines practicing medicine. Health care can't always be reduced to spreadsheets and cookie cutter processes.
Ms. Herzlinger advances the solution as consumer-driven health care. Competition and transparency in pricing would force prices down, saving large amounts of money. Spending choices would be put into the hands of consumers, allowing them to make choices based on their needs, not the needs of groups that employ or insure them. Laws should be changed to allow for smaller specialty practices to exist to focus on particular health concerns, such as heart disease or kidney issues. In short, medicine should be operated more like other businesses where pricing is known, competition rules, and innovation and entrepreneurism is permitted and encouraged.
I personally feel this is a much better option than many others I've seen proposed. But even with that, I think that Herzlinger doesn't take into account the propensity for corporate greed. While less government regulation would be good, many regulations came about to address fraud. And no matter how you structure the changes to health care, there will ALWAYS be some group that will look for ways to get as much as possible while supplying as little as they can. Add in kickbacks and other "creative accounting", and you have an area ripe for abuse. So while many of the things that Herzlinger proposes make sense, none of them can be complete answers in themselves.
Even with my caveats, I think Who Killed Health Care is a very good read in order to increase your understanding of the current environment and possible solutions to our health care crisis.
One of the major problems facing America right now is the health care system as it currently exists. I felt that a bit of reading was in order to start to educate myself on the various views and proposed solutions. Regina Herzlinger takes the position that consumer-driven health care is the best solution in her book Who Killed Health Care?: America's $2 Trillion Medical Problem - and the Consumer-Driven Cure. While I think she makes some strong arguments (and while I think this is one of the better solutions), I think she's somewhat naive on a couple of points.
Contents:
Part 1 - Who Killed Health Care?: The Day Health Care Died
Part 2 - Death By A Thousand Cuts: Killer Number 1 - The Health Insurers; Killer Number 2 - The General Hospitals; Killer Number 3 - The Employers; Killer Number 4 - The U.S. Congress; Killer Number 5 - The Academics
Part 3 - The Right Medicine - Consumer-Driven Health Care: How It Works; Consumer-Driven Benefits - Lessons From Other Countries and Industries
Part 4 - How To Make It Happen - The Carrots, The Sticks, The Laws: The Carrots; The Sticks; A Bold New Consumer-Driven Health Care System
Notes; Index
Herzlinger uses the metaphor of a dead patient to explain the parts of the US Health Care system that "killed" him. "Jack Morgan" needed a kidney transplant, and had a donor (his daughter) all lined up. But all the "killers" conspired to contribute to his death. Insurers did so by delaying authorization for coverage of the procedure to increase their profit. Hospitals did so by hiding their prices, and then charging him the highest rates if he had the procedure without insurance coverage. Employers did so by restricting coverage choices to lower their costs of insuring their employees, even though they're using *your* money to buy the coverage. Congress contributed to Jack's death by thinking it knew better on how to spend money on his care than Jack did. Therefore, money only went in the direction Congress dictated. And finally, the academics played their part by dictating "smart policy" for heath care professionals, even though they had never been on the front-lines practicing medicine. Health care can't always be reduced to spreadsheets and cookie cutter processes.
Ms. Herzlinger advances the solution as consumer-driven health care. Competition and transparency in pricing would force prices down, saving large amounts of money. Spending choices would be put into the hands of consumers, allowing them to make choices based on their needs, not the needs of groups that employ or insure them. Laws should be changed to allow for smaller specialty practices to exist to focus on particular health concerns, such as heart disease or kidney issues. In short, medicine should be operated more like other businesses where pricing is known, competition rules, and innovation and entrepreneurism is permitted and encouraged.
I personally feel this is a much better option than many others I've seen proposed. But even with that, I think that Herzlinger doesn't take into account the propensity for corporate greed. While less government regulation would be good, many regulations came about to address fraud. And no matter how you structure the changes to health care, there will ALWAYS be some group that will look for ways to get as much as possible while supplying as little as they can. Add in kickbacks and other "creative accounting", and you have an area ripe for abuse. So while many of the things that Herzlinger proposes make sense, none of them can be complete answers in themselves.
Even with my caveats, I think Who Killed Health Care is a very good read in order to increase your understanding of the current environment and possible solutions to our health care crisis.
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