Consumer-directed Health Care: Except for the Healthy and Wealthy It’s Unwise

Consumer - Directed Health Care

DEBATE CONSUMER-DIRECTED HEALTH CARE You won't hear many health experts claim that the American healthcare system is functioning perfectly in terms of core considerations such as cost, access, and quality. The question that arises with the advent of any new policy approach seeking to improve the system is obvious: Does the change represent a step forward or backward? of the University of Michig...

Healthy, wealthy and fair: health care and the good society

The origin and cell lineage of stromal cells in the bone marrow is uncertain. Whether a common stem cell exists for both haemopoietic and stromal cells or whether these cell lines arise from distinct stem cells is unknown. Using in situ hybridisation for detection of the Y chromosome, we have examined histological sections of bone marrow from seven patients who received marrow transplants from ...

Debate Consumer - Directed Health Care

The Economics of Consumer Directed Health Care

This paper presents a model of consumer directed health care, high deductible insurance plans. Insurance companies in a competitive market offer such plans; higher deductibles result in lower premiums. Such changes affect consumers’ decisions on preventive care. I show that preventive care may or may not increase when consumers face more risk and lower premium. Furthermore, I look at selection ...

Consumer-directed health care: are consumers ready?

In the continuing quest to bring health care costs and the rate of health care inflation under control, a new concept known as consumer-directed health care is steadily gaining momentum nationwide. The proponents of this somewhat controversial movement argue that, heretofore, consumers of health care (ie, our patients) were passive recipients of health care services and as a result were effecti...