Consumer-Driven Health Care

Consumer-Driven Health Care- I will play the Devil’s advocate for this discussion. I am pessimistic in consumer-driven health care. Too little, too late to make a qualitative difference and for the remainder of this decade, I do not foresee much tangible progress to change. As Dr. Jeffrey Kang stated in Unlocking the Mystery of Health Care Pricing as to the reason Cigna does not plan to provide pricing information for certain physicians; “The answer is ‘no, ’ because it’s not meaningful ” (Clark, 2006). Kang further states, “People want information that’s quick, easy, and digestible (Clark, 2006). ” I believe that which Kang is actually saying is that the physicians who are not cost-efficient have pricing that is not pallatable for consumers. To make this point I will incorporate several examples including, high-deductible health plans, flexible spending accounts, and CMS. High-deductible health plans: High-deductible plans cost less for employees and the employer. If the employee does not get sick, the plan is enticing. Even if the employee has a catastrophic event, the employee is limited on out of pocket expenses. However, for many employees who fall in the middle and may live payday-to-payday this is a cause for concern. Flexible spending accounts: Flexible spending accounts were designed to reimburse employee