Managing Care: A Shared Responsibility

The goal of this book is to propose an alternative approach to address the problem of the exponential rise of health care costs, and, more importantly, to address the lingering dilemma of how to establish broadly agreed-upon fundamental guidelines by which health care can be managed in a manner that is more morally appropriate. Although in no way a new concept, the notion that society’s financial resources, even when it comes to health care, are indeed limited is one with which the general public has grown increasingly familiar only during the past two decades. Familiarity, however, does not automatically imply public appreciation for the strategies that have been implemented to curb the problems of health care. These strategies have customarily been designed to change the distribution of health care, such as by limiting patient choices, reducing access, lowering utilization, increasing premiums, requiring higher deductibles, or shifting financial responsibilities. In other words, the main focus has been on making the patient, or as the commodity market would say, the consumer, more responsible.