Health care in the United States and other nations is on a collision course with patient needs and economic reality. For more than a decade, leading thinkers including Michael Porter and Clayton Christensen have argued passionately for value-based health care reform: replacing delivery based on...

This book provides key economic facts, explains the economic concepts needed to examine the implications of these facts, and summarizes the results of empirical studies regarding our healthcare system's access, cost, and quality problems as well as identifying six key trends that are reforming...

part Section I: Pressures for Change -- chapter 1 Access -- chapter 2 Cost -- chapter 3 Quality -- chapter Conclusion to Section I -- chapter Introduction -- chapter 4 Align Incentives via Payment System Design -- chapter 5 Managed Care Organizations, Accountable Care Organizations, and...