Consumer-Driven Health Care: Promise And Performance
James C. Robinson 1*
Paul B. Ginsburg 2
1 James Robinson is the Kaiser Permanente Professor of Health Economics in the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley.
2 Paul Ginsburg is president of the Center for Studying Health System Change in Washington, D.C.
*Corresponding author.
This paper analyzes the evolution of consumer-driven health care in terms of its original vision, its subsequent implementation, and the transformations it has endured as it moves into its second decade. The market is generating product designs that combine elements of consumerism with elements of managed care, but the trend is always toward a stronger role for consumer choice and a weaker role for management of those choices by physicians, insurers, employers, and regulators. [Health Affairs 28, no. 2 (2009): w272-w281 (published online 27 January 2009; 10.1377/hlthaff.28.2.w272)]
Key Words:
Consumer Issues, Health Reform, Managed Care, Managed Care - Consumers, Quality Of Care, Health Spending, Insurance Market