Health Care Reform: Design Principles for a Patient-Centered, Consumer-Based Market

Publication Date: April 2008

Publisher: Heritage Foundation (Washington, D.C.)

Author(s): Edmund F. Haislmaier

Research Area: Economics; Health

Keywords: Health care; Health Insurance; health care reform; value maximizing

Type: Report

Coverage: United States

Abstract:

The foundational insight behind consumer-centered health care reform is that the only way to achieve better value is to make the consumer (and patient) the key decision maker in the system. Only a consumer-centered health care system offers the incentives needed to maximize value and produce more for less both systematically and consistently over the long term.