ABSTRACT
Healthcare is knit into the fabric of the nation, not only because it is the largest business sector, but because it is a must-have for everyone. We all have bodies, sometimes they break, and eventually they fall apart completely. And we all pay for this enormous system in one way or another. So the healthcare problem does not exist in isolation. Any solution lives or dies in the context of the stuttering economy, the changing demographics of the patients and the workforce, changing disease pro©les, new technologies, reform legislation, and changes in the insurance market. Perhaps the most important of all these trends is the growing realization among policy makers, healthcare executives, employers, and the public that the way we have done this all these years is not working anymore, that this boat is sinking, this train is careening o¢ the track, this platform is burning-that we are running short on metaphors and clichés vivid enough to capture the caliber of disaster we are facing. Too many people are dying, too many are su¢ering and are being driven into bankruptcy and poverty, too many companies are burdened and slowed by the cost-and all because of a problem that we could actually ©x.
