"We begin with a riddle. What country's health care system
offers the best health services in the world, is constantly
criticized for not being accessible enough, and yet is so
accessible that overuse is leading to runaway costs? The first part
of the riddle reveals that the answer could only be America. The
remainder gives the contours of a paradox that vexes policymakers
year in and year out. Welcome to health care, American-style.... To
carry the health care debate on its next lap, America first needs a
clear, well-informed, and well-reasoned analysis of the apparent
paradox of its health care system. And it needs an agenda for
reform that respects the wonders that modern medicine has developed
and the creative market processes that deliver them. Cannon and
Tanner offer proposals that would further tap the power of markets
to make health care more valuable and more affordable. That makes
Healthy Competition essential reading."
-George P. Shultz, Former Secretary of State
"Surprisingly readable, extraordinarily comprehensive, highly
persuasive. Read how the key to improving health care in the United
States is to convert the patient from a ward of the state to an
independent, self-interested customer."
-Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate in Economics
"Health care costs and insurance premiums are rapidly increasing,
making both insured and uninsured consumers worse
off...[P]olicymakers are again confronting the fact that change is
desperately needed. The direction of that change, however, is
anything but settled. Does the solution lie in private markets,
greater government involvement, or some combination of the two?
Healthy Competition is a timely and important contribution
to this debate. The authors argue passionately that markets are the
best available vehicle for reforming the health care system. In
general, their philosophy is that reform should increase the number
of decisions made by patients and decrease the number of decisions
made by government officials."
-Deborah Haas-Wilson, Smith College, in New England
Journal of Medicine
"Healthy Competition…is a valuable challenge to the health
policy community to take health policy debates to a moral plane
where consumer welfare and individual freedom are given more than
just lip service."
-Clark Havighurst, Duke University School of Law, in Health Affairs
"[Healthy Competition] should be read by anyone who wants
to understand the free-market health care movement and the
challenge it poses to liberal orthodoxy in health policy."
-Professor Timothy Stoltzfus Jost, Health Economics, Policy and
Law
"In Healthy Competition, Michael F. Cannon and Michael D.
Tanner provide a concise and highly readable summary of the
evidence refuting the case against market competition in health
care. Cannon and Tanner... provide a valuable service by
accumulating the evidence that demonstrates that although health
care is not the "same" as personal computers or household
appliances, it is not so "different" that market forces cannot work
to consumers' benefit."
-Robert L. Ohsfeldt, Texas A&M Health Science Center, The Independent Review
"By restoring free market dynamics to the healthcare system, the
authors propose to cure many of the ills that plague it. This book
should prove to be an invaluable resource for anyone looking for a
concise exposition and analysis of what is wrong with our health
care system and interesting ways to repair it. There is valuable
information on almost every page of this well-researched study.
Even if the reader disagrees with some of the suggested solutions,
this is a fact-packed read that will provide reference material for
quite some time to come."
-Kirk Hoewisch, President, HSA Bank [Read the full
review]
