ABOUT THE BOOK

Consumer-driven health care is fundamentally about empowering health care consumers-all of us-with control, choice, and information. Consumer control will reward innovative insurers and providers for creating the higher-quality, lower-cost services we want and deserve. In this consumer-driven system, government will protect us with financial assistance and oversight, not micromanagement. In these ways consumer-driven health care is a revolution-a radical turn away from the technocratic, top-down policies that just say no to providers and consumers both in the United States and abroad. This book explains how consumer-driven health care works. This book is about consumer-driven health care-the why and the how of enabling people to obtain the health care they want at a price they are willing to pay. The American public supports the idea of consumer-driven health care. When people ask me the title of my latest book, the almost invariable reaction to its name, consumer-driven health care, is, “well, it’s about time!” whether the person is the barista at the local Starbucks, a business executive, a cabdriver, or a doctor.