Curing U.S. Health Care (HBR OnPoint Collection)

U.S. companies are fed up with soaring U.S. health benefit costs; patients, with low-quality, inconvenient care. The root cause of these problems? The wrong kind of competition. Industry players divide up--rather than drive up--value. Employers shift costs to employees. Insurers limit patients' access to services. Providers spend less time with patients. The prevailing question is "Who's paying?" not "Who's providing top value?" Consider a different kind of competition--where industry players increase value: 1) Providers excel at preventing, diagnosing, and treating specific diseases--where cost and quality improvements await; 2) hospitals and HMOs embrace convenient, cheap, simple products and services; and 3) companies give employees more health plan options, greater control over what they spend, and more information to make wiser choices. By insisting on the right kind of competition, we can collectively begin to revitalize this struggling system. This Harvard Business Review OnPoint collection offers guidelines for doing your part. HBR OnPoint collections include an overview and three full-text HBR articles, each with a synopsis and annotated bibliography. The three articles: "Redefining Competition in Health Care" (HBR reprint R0406D) by Michael E. Porter and Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg, "Will Disruptive Innovations Cure Health Care?" by Clayton M. Christensen, Richard Bohmer, and John Kenagy (HBR reprint R00501), and "Let's Put Consumers in Charge of Health Care" by Regina E. Herzlinger (HBR reprint R0207B).