(McGraw-Hill, 2007)

By Regina Herzlinger

In the battle for U.S. health care, patients and doctors are losing. Who Killed Health Care? shows how to win the war.

One of the nation's most respected health care analysts, Regina Herzlinger exposes the motives and methods of those who have crippled America's health care system—figures in the insurance, hospital, employment, governmental, and academic sectors. She proves how our current system, which is organized around payers and providers rather than the needs of its users, is dangerously eroding patient welfare and is pushing costs out of the reach of millions.

Who Killed Health Care? then outlines Herzlinger's bold new plan for a consumer-driven system that will deliver affordable high-quality care to everyone. By putting insurance money in the hands of patients. removing the middleman in the doctor-patient relationship, and giving employers cost relief, consumers and physicians will be empowered to make the system work the way it should. Herzlinger describes in precise detail how her innovative program will provide.

• Smaller, disease-focused medical facilities that provide complete care to patients
• A national system of medical records that provides privacy to provides and allows for confidential access to approved practitioners
• Mandatory performance evaluations of all hospitals and all other medical organizations
• Mandatory health insurance with subsidies for those who cannot afford it

Who Killed Health Care? is a call to arms that must be answered; the welfare of every American hangs in the balance.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Regina E. Herzlinger, often referred to as the "Godmother of Consumer-Driven Health Care," is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. She was the first woman to be tenured at the Harvard Business School as the Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration. Herzlinger is widely recognized for her innovative research in health care, including her early predictions of the unraveling of managed care and the rise of consumer-driven health care and health care focused factories—two terms that she coined.

Professor Herzlinger has been honored with numerous awards, including the American College of Healthcare Executives' Thompson Book of the Year Award twice and the Academy of Healthcare Executives Research Award three times. She received the Hospital Financial Managers Association’s Board of Directors award and has been repeatedly selected one of the "100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare" in Modern Healthcare.

Professor Herzlinger’s authority on health care was solidified by the success of her previous books: in Market-Driven Health Care, she addressed the need to reform the way health care is supplied; in Consumer-Driven Health Care, she reviewed the way health insurance is supplied; and, finally, in Who Killed Health Care?, Professor Herzlinger issues a call to arms to revolutionize our health care system with a consumer-driven cure.

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ADVANCE PRAISE

"It's not the health care industry and the government that will transform America's health care system. It's the people who will demand and define the right changes. Dr. Herzlinger captures the long missing, and most important, voice in the health care reform discussions: the consumer."
— Andrew Mekelburg, Vice President, Verizon Communications

"Professor Regina Herzlinger, one of our Nation's preeminent experts on Health Care, has written in a bold and courageous fashion, a blockbuster exposé of the deficiencies in our Nation's health care. In very precise and unmistakable terms, she has defined for the first time an explicit set of initiatives, in a truly innovative and comprehensive approach that could fundamentally alter a terribly dysfunctional health care system."
— Bernard Salick, M.D., Chairman of the Board and CEO, Salick Cardiovascular Centers, Inc.

"Professor Herzlinger speaks out in this remarkable book. She has seen enough...enough greed where our healthcare system is being ruined by insurers, hospitals, employers, academics and even the U.S. Congress. She correctly states that, remarkably, the consumer, i.e. the patient, essentially has no voice, no control, and no data on which decisions about his/her healthcare can be made. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to really get the lowdown on what is happening in our healthcare system. She doesn't pull any punches and proposes bold changes that are necessary to restore power to the consumer, together with physicians, and end this dysfunctional crisis in which our healthcare system currently finds itself."
— James H. Herndon, William H. and Johanna A. Harris Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, Harvard Medical School and Past President, American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

"A wonderful Orwellian romp through issues which carry a deadly irony. The killers of health care are, of course, the third parties, each of which has an itchy palm and a commitment to profit or power which exceeds the commitment to service, with each engaging the others within a politically shaped box. Rarely has the case for the public been made with so much force, foresight, and wit, and a better way forward shown so clearly."
— James F. Fries, MD, Professor of Medicine Stanford University School of Medicine

"As it becomes more and more obvious to everyone that our current health care system is unsustainable, this is the book that had to be written."
— Daniel H. Johnson, Jr., MD, former president of the American Medical Association

"Regina Herzlinger's ideas to tackle the crisis of the U.S. health care system are based on a keen knowledge of the system's existing difficulties along with insights that introduce the reader to new streamlined choices that have the potential of getting both quality and cost under control."
— Joseph Kennedy, founder, chairman, and president, Citizens Energy Corporation, CEO, Citizens Health Care, former representative (D-Mass)

"Regina Herzlinger... offers a vision of the way things can be, should be, and will be sooner or later. The only question is: how long do we have to wait?"
— Greg Scandlen, founder, Consumers for Health Choices

"Regi Herzlinger has brilliantly articulated a better way—embracing the principles of competition and innovation that cause every other sector of our economy to thrive."
— U.S. Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla), MD

"Following on the heels of her landmark Market-Driven Health Care, Herzlinger lays it on the line with her exposé of what many who work in the health care industry have felt in their gut. Now it is articulated in an entertaining and must-read portrayal, with you and ire as the only way cut."
— Dennis White, executive vice president for strategic development, National Business Coalition on Health

"A brilliant analysis... A must read."
— Bill George, Professor, Harvard Business School and former CEO of Medtronic