Herzlinger - Who is Killing Health Care?

I'm in Juno Beach, Florida, and I've just completed reading Regina Herzlinger's latest book, Who is Killing Health Care? (McGraw Hill, 2007). The book is an all-out assault on the flaws of the present system. She puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of not-for-profit hospitals, managed care, employers, the academic community, Congress, and other self-serving third parties who know little about health care consumers. All of these third parties, she says, in one way another, adopt a paternalistic "Father knows best" attitude without basically knowing what they're talking about. Only they, the top-down gang, feels it knows what's good for patients when nothing could be farther from the truth.

The altitude and attitudes of the health care "fat cats," who are pocketing billions to serve their own narrow self-interests, bewilders and angers health care consumers. Consumers feel they have little choice, control, transparency, and information to make intelligent choices. And third party actions hog tie doctors. leaving little room for innovation and entrepreneurship. These two factors, Regina asserts, will the the life-blood and salvation of any workable, convenient, cost-saving, patient-serving system. Health care consumer, Herzlinger maintains, are very smart people who know what's best for themselves. More on this book and specific examples of what Herzlinger is talking about later.