Employers are unhappy with the growing number and cost of mandates and regulations. Employees are unhappy with the constraints of managed care, the lack of portability, and the limited choices available to them. Physicians are unhappy with the interference with the way they practice medicine. Politicians are unhappy that the numbers of uninsured are growing even in times of prosperity.
Employers hold the keys to the transformation of the American health care system.
Americans believe in markets. Yet employers are the very group that has undermined the market as purchasers. Only 17 percent of employers provide any choice of health care. It s hard to have a market if there s no choice of products. Only 6 percent use quality information to make benefit decisions.