Health and Healthcare

Good health is the well from which life drinks. Unfortunately, the American healthcare system is plagued with problems, including high costs, stifled innovation, inadequate insurance coverage, and more. Many factors have contributed to our healthcare malady, but two are especially important: overregulation and government policies that have fostered a third-party payment system. The first cause reduces the choices available to consumers and physicians; the second makes pricing opaque and creates incentives for imprudent spending. Over the years, Independent Institute fellows have proposed a variety of reforms to liberate patients and caregivers from a system that often stands in the way of affordable, high-quality healthcare. These include deregulation of the healthcare (and health insurance) industry and the encouragement of a patient-centered approach based on the principle of choice.