Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Improving the American health system: moving from inglorious socialism to the free market

Improving the American health system: moving from inglorious socialism to the free market Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the three critical changes needed to reform the US health care system – these changes will drive cascades of other beneficial changes. These three changes include the use of transparent market prices, alignment of incentives and systematic assessment and ratings of quality. Design/methodology/approach – The paper used an analysis based on the literature on the comparison between non-market and market systems. The current US health care system is similar to the Soviet economic system, and the paper proposes moving it gradually to where it can respond to market-based signals. Findings – The US health care system needs to adopt transparent and real pricing, independent quality assessment of health provider organizations and portable electronic patient records. These changes will lead to continuing cascades of innovation and improvement. Research limitations/implications – The recommended changes will be opposed by vested interest groups, and so will be easier with regulatory guidance and encouragement. It would also be useful to protect against “regulatory capture” by interested parties during the change process. Practical implications – Health care in the USA will gradually become better and cheaper. Health organizations will become more transparent. Regulators would have to set up and supervise private quality ratings agencies. Social implications – Social implications of this paper include greater labor mobility and higher productivity, as well as increased competitiveness of the USA. Originality/value – In spite of numerous writings on the subject, this issue has not been analyzed in this way. This paper is unique in the way in which it layouts the process of movement to a market-based system for the US health care system. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Competitiveness Review Emerald Publishing

Improving the American health system: moving from inglorious socialism to the free market

Aggarwal, Raj; Bohinc, Jerry
Competitiveness Review , Volume 24 (5): 13 – Oct 14, 2014
Download PDF
13 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/improving-the-american-health-system-moving-from-inglorious-socialism-SdyE90JZEV
Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
ISSN
1059-5422
DOI
10.1108/CR-08-2013-0072
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the three critical changes needed to reform the US health care system – these changes will drive cascades of other beneficial changes. These three changes include the use of transparent market prices, alignment of incentives and systematic assessment and ratings of quality. Design/methodology/approach – The paper used an analysis based on the literature on the comparison between non-market and market systems. The current US health care system is similar to the Soviet economic system, and the paper proposes moving it gradually to where it can respond to market-based signals. Findings – The US health care system needs to adopt transparent and real pricing, independent quality assessment of health provider organizations and portable electronic patient records. These changes will lead to continuing cascades of innovation and improvement. Research limitations/implications – The recommended changes will be opposed by vested interest groups, and so will be easier with regulatory guidance and encouragement. It would also be useful to protect against “regulatory capture” by interested parties during the change process. Practical implications – Health care in the USA will gradually become better and cheaper. Health organizations will become more transparent. Regulators would have to set up and supervise private quality ratings agencies. Social implications – Social implications of this paper include greater labor mobility and higher productivity, as well as increased competitiveness of the USA. Originality/value – In spite of numerous writings on the subject, this issue has not been analyzed in this way. This paper is unique in the way in which it layouts the process of movement to a market-based system for the US health care system.

Journal

Competitiveness Review – Emerald Publishing

Published: Oct 14, 2014

There are no references for this article.