Given the colossal health care reform legislation that is zigzagging its way through Congress, it would be difficult to imagine there could be anything missing. After all, the bills in the House and Sen ate have more pages than all seven Harry Potter books combined -- more than 4,000 pages between the two of them.
Yet, one of the most critical elements needed to overhaul our current system is conspicuously absent: the patient as consumer.
Rather than a proposed solution that relies on complicated new mandates, regulations, and government oversight, we need a far simpler, market-based and common-sense approach, one that businesses large and small are already discovering in growing numbers.