Consumerism and Health Care
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6362996 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Samuel Wolfe (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1971 |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 528-528 |
| Publication date | 1971-09-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Public Administration Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0033-3352 • E-ISSN: 1540-6210 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.2307/974974 |
| OpenAlex | W2333403693 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 4 |
THOSE WHO NEED THE SERVICE, who pay the bills, who are most deeply concerned for the success of the enterprise, who endure its failures, who get the life it wins, and who suffer the pain and the dying must control if the effort is to carry on as an expanding social principle. Without such consumer or patients' domination the alternatives are the profit motive, stateism, autocracy, or philanthropy. None of these solves social problems. 1 Reading these words of an idealistic physician and maverick written almost 40 years ago, a hard-headed cynic (or a public administrator) may tend to scoff. But Dr. Warbasse anticipated the stirrings of the consumer, so widely discussed and of so much concern today. He regarded health care as a right, not a privilege. He thought that medicine was a service, not a business. And he expressed the view that If the public would get all that is to be had from the medical arts, it can not be passive; it must go out and get what it wants. Benefits that are bestowed are less beneficial than those that are obtained. 2 Consumerism in the field of health is neither new nor peculiarly American. For purposes of this article, consumerism means the various forms of participation by the users or potential users of service, on the boards of private or public agencies concerned with either the organization, financing, provision, planning, coordination, or regulation of health care services. As Mott has noted in a detailed essay analyzing consumer participation in comprehensive health planning, consumer participation is not a clear and cohesive set of ideas and practices, but may take a variety of forms. 3 Two things seem clear. Even middle-class America is
Business · Consumerism · Political science · Global Public Health Policies and Epidemiology · Law · Mental Health and Patient Involvement · Public Health Policies and Education
| Highly cited | No |
|---|