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Melinda Beeuwkes Buntin, Cheryl Damberg, Amelia Haviland, Kanika Kapur, Nicole Lurie, Roland McDevitt, and M. Susan Marquis Consumer-Directed Health Care: Early Evidence About Effects On Cost And Quality Health Affairs, November/December 2006; 25(6): w516-w530. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] [Table of Contents] [Reprints & Permissions]

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Electronic letters published:

Response To Consumer-Directed Health Care Paper

Regina E. Herzlinger   ( 21 December 2006 )

Response To Consumer-Directed Health Care Paper 21 December 2006
Regina E. Herzlinger, Professor Harvard Business School Send letter to journal: Re: Response To Consumer-Directed Health Care Paper rherzlinger{at}hbs.edu Regina E. Herzlinger	Switzerland, which HAS a decades-old consumer-driven health care system, provides excellent evidence of its impact. The Swiss require consumers to buy their own health insurance. All plans, but for HMOs, feature deductibles. The Swiss insurers are risk-adjusted, and the government subsidizes poor consumers. This consumer-driven system costs nearly 40% less than ours as a percentage of GDP, yet achieves universal health care, excellent health status, high consumer satisfaction, and ample resources, even when compared to a high-income state like Connecticut. The Swiss providers are as constrained as ours by heavy-handed insurers and government micromanagement, and enrollees are hampered by an absence of information. Yet the system demonstrates the positive results that can be achieved, even with these constraints, by liberating consumers to buy their own health insurance.