NEJM -- Health Care in the 21st Century

NEJM -- Health Care in the 21st Century
William H. Frist, M.D.
I would like you to meet a patient from the year 2015. He lives in a world in which years ago America's leaders made tough but wise decisions. They built on the best aspects of American health care and unleashed the creative power of the competitively driven marketplace. These changes resulted in dramatic improvements to the U.S. health care system — lower costs, higher quality, greater efficiency, and better access to care.
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American health care is at a crossroads. Rapidly advancing forms of technology are dramatically improving lives. Simultaneously, U.S. citizens face enormous inefficiencies, escalating costs, uneven quality, disparities in health care, and rising numbers of uninsured people. For decades, policymakers have debated and rejected a variety of solutions.
What we have never done in the health care economy, however, is foster the kind of competition that has made other industries the most successful, prosperous, and advanced in the world.
At this crossroads we now have a unique opportunity to use information technology to create a health care marketplace that will in turn produce the
transformed 21st-century health care system we must have.