This essay describes the root cause of inefficiencies in the US healthcare system and the recurring pattern of government-centered policies. It then outlines a pathway for patient-centered transformation: freeing patients via control over their healthcare dollars; freeing providers via a leveling of the playing field; freeing insurers to achieve affordable premiums; and constraining regulators to empower market participants. Finally, the essay describes the energy and dynamics driving this patient-centered movement.
Key takeaways
- The root cause of inefficient US healthcare is its government orientation. Government-oriented healthcare policies follow a cyclical pattern: detaching consumers from their own healthcare dollars, expanding public spending, turning enterprises into crony capitalists, regulating to raise prices, blaming the private sector for greed, and advancing more government control.
- The core idea of the patient-centered movement is to allow individuals to control their own healthcare dollars (free patients), level the playing field for providers to ensure fair competition (free providers), unshackle insurance companies to offer plans that meet diverse needs (free insurers), and empower the market to make decisions (constrain regulators).
- In the virtuous cycle of patient-centered healthcare, Americans benefit from lower prices, better quality of care, and improved health; employers gain flexible and affordable options to fund or purchase healthcare for workers; physicians, relieved from administrative complexities, focus on care delivery and innovation; national healthcare spending stabilizes; innovations in medicine, care delivery, and insurance design continuously improve quality and reduce costs; and sustainable political will flourishes, further shrinking the states’ roles and centering healthcare on patients.
- The energy to initiate and strengthen this virtuous cycle springs from the sustainable demand to access better and cheaper healthcare on the buy side and the unquenchable desire to innovate and achieve returns on the sell side.
Patient-Centered Healthcare by Hoover Institution
Cite this essay:
Ge Bai. “Patient-Centered Healthcare.” From the series 2025 and Beyond: Health Policy Challenges on the Agenda. Healthcare Policy Working Group, Hoover Institution. January 2025.
