While some consider it President Obama's greatest accomplishment, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act also has been the target of constant scrutiny and scorn since it was signed into law last year. Just last week, several news outlets in the law that would allow millions of middle-class Americans to receive Medicaid. It's also expected that the creation of so-called Obamacare will be a front-and-center issue debated in the 2012 presidential election.
This growing awareness that our current system is headed on an unsustainable track is one reason that the business of health care is a major research topic at Harvard Business School and its , where some 40 faculty conduct research on questions as diverse as how "work-around" cultures develop in hospitals to the best ways deliver high-impact medical services in developing nations.
HBS professor Regina Herzlinger has been the foremost advocate for what she calls "." In this video, she argues that just as consumers drive the retail industry, so too should they drive health care.