His insight: until we make the individual patient the consumer as opposed to the insurance company standing in for the consumer, no meaningful progress will be made on reducing the cost of healthcare in the US.
The solution: make individuals responsible for their own tax-free health care accounts where they educate themselves and prudently shop for value when selecting doctors, hospitals and procedures. Relegate health insurance to catastrophic problems, not body maintenance. Make the costs of everything transparent, in just the same way as shopping for a hotel room or buying a computer
It's only by putting the consumer in control that we can hope to eliminate the vortices of self-interest that make up the current system.
I believe the Obama administration will fail to make a meaningful change in our healthcare program. For all the brains in this administration, there is no thought leadership on how to change the system, only a wish list of end goals, such as "reduce long term health care costs..."
Hopefully in the next ten years we'll get a chief executive that exploits the power of the office (in the same way that G. W. Bush did for his Iraq project), to base reform on a fundamental hypothesis on what is wrong, like the ones Goldhill articulates. Until then I'm tuning out this thread, as I believe most Americans will lose interest, because the Obama administration is not using a powerful lever to move this obstacle.
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