Publications

September 2, 2020
Article

How to Pay for Public Option Without Tax Hike

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Richard Boxer

A bipartisan combination of the two parties’ most popular initiatives can expand health care coverage, significantly reduce costs, and enable freedom of choice, without raising taxes. Along the way, we can revitalize competition between public and private plans. Our... View Details

Keywords: Health Insurance; Public Option; Health Care and Treatment; Insurance; Cost Management; United States

2019
Working Paper

Thinking Outside the Box (12): The Benefits of Increased Transparency in Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance for the 180 Million Insured

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Barak D. Richman

Economists have long noted that the tax exclusion of employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) caused workers to purchase health plans that differ in price and other characteristics from those they would otherwise choose for themselves. We explore the short-term and long-term... View Details

Keywords: After-tax Income; Consumer-driven Health Care; Health Care Costs; Health Insurance; Income Inequality; Tax Policy; Health Care and Treatment; Cost; Insurance; Income; Equality and Inequality; Taxation; Policy; United States

September 2024 (Revised March 2025)
Case

Epic: The Future of Health Information Technology

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Brian L. Walker

How should the founder and leadership team of a health IT company with more than 45 years of market leadership prepare for the future, while navigating founder transitions and industry changes? Founded by Judy Faulkner in the late 1970s, Epic pioneered electronic... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Private Ownership; Customer Focus and Relationships; Information Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business Strategy; Competition; Health Industry; Electronics Industry; Information Technology Industry

04 May 2010
First Look

First Look: May 4

and Why? Authors:Stephen Leider and Alvin E. Roth Publication:Journal of Transplantation 10 (May 2010): 1221-1227 Abstract The shortage of transplant kidneys has spurred debate... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

05 Oct 2010
First Look

First Look: October 5, 2010

Purchase this case:http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/311049-PDF-ENG Vitalia Franchise Regina E. Herzlinger and Beatriz Munoz-SecaHarvard... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Forthcoming
Article

From Bupkis to Sechel in Health Care

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Richard Boxer

Fifty years ago, famed economist Milton Friedman declared that “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” This free market manifesto was adopted by the healthcare industry as well. But transactional has evolved into transformational with the... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Accountability; Customer Focus and Relationships; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Health Industry

February 2018
Case

Health Savings Accounts: Enabling Consumer Participation

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and James Wallace

Health savings accounts (HSAs), a creation of the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act, had become an integral part of the drive toward consumer-driven health care. Coupled with high-deductible health plans, HSAs allowed consumers to directly control a significant part of... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Healthcare Costs; Health Insurance; Health Care and Treatment; Cost; Insurance; Innovation and Invention; Health Industry; United States

March 2015 (Revised January 2024)
Case

CV Ingenuity (A): How to Evaluate the Commercial Viability of New Health Care Technologies

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Andrew Otazo

Duke Rohlen (HBS MBA ’01) hoped to win over a prominent venture capital investor for Series B financing of his firm CVI that was creating a drug-eluting balloon (DES) to treat peripheral arterial disease. As a second-mover, Duke felt he was more likely to acquire... View Details

January 2, 2020
Article

Medicare for All or Public Option: Can Either Heal Health Care?

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and James Wallace

The United States has serious health care problems: More than 27 million uninsured people, costs that are growing faster than income, and a staggering $37 trillion of unfunded liabilities in the Medicare program. Perhaps most alarming: The US ranks lowest among... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare; Public Option; Medicare; Health Care and Treatment; Insurance; Cost Management; Problems and Challenges; United States

Article

Transparency as a Solution for the Hospital Capacity Problem

By: Regina E. Herzlinger

COVID dramatically clarified a shortcoming in our great healthcare system, but like everything in the world, it has its shortcomings. What we see through the apex of COVID is that many hospitals in hotspot areas cannot provide an adequate supply of beds. Although the... View Details

Keywords: Hospital Capacity; Health Care and Treatment; Performance Capacity; Planning; Cooperation

27 Sep 2011
First Look

First Look: September 27

Transition to IFRS David F. Hawkins and Angel R. SolisHarvard Business School Case 112-009 Barrick Gold must change from Canadian GAAP to IFRS. Case covers the transition. Purchase this... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

06 Apr 2010
First Look

First Look: April 6

overview of the bankruptcy of General Motors Corp. Purchase this case:http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/210056-PDF-ENG Note on Telemedicine Regina E. Herzlinger View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

20 Jul 2010
First Look

First Look: July 20

rights on firms' external finance constraints via generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation of an augmented investment Euler equation developed by Whited and Wu (2006). Using a large sample of U.S.... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

August 2003 (Revised August 2024)
Case

Fighting the Battle of the Bulge—Evaluating Do Good/Do Well Innovations in Morbid Obesity Treatment

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and John McDonough

Many health care innovations appear successful; but fail. This is the first case in the Innovating Health Care course that investigates how to create successful health care innovations. It is part of the first module in the course. This module focuses on how to... View Details

Keywords: Three Pillars; Industry Analysis; Health Care and Treatment; Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Medical Specialties; Health Industry

July 1996 (Revised August 2024)
Case

Innovative Opportunities to Manage Health Care Delivery

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and D. Scott Lurding

The purpose of this case is: To familiarize the students with the changing landscape of health care delivery, through chains of retail medical centers and those offering value-based care (VBC).

To discuss fundamental managerial decisions about their... View Details

Keywords: Managed Care; Capitation; Strategy

February 18, 2022
Article

Transparency as a Solution for COVID-19 Related Hospital Capacity Issues

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Richard Boxer

In the initial phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, many U.S. hospitals could not provide an adequate supply of beds to meet demand. Solving the problem of hospital bed capacity is of great importance in the “new normal,” which requires recognizing that SARS-CoV-2 is but... View Details

Keywords: COVID; COVID-19 Pandemic; Health Care; Health Care Demand; Health Care Delivery; Health Care Industry; Health Care Operations; Health Care Policy; Transparency; Hospital; Hospital Management; Hospitals; Health Pandemics; Health Care and Treatment; Service Delivery; Operations; Performance Capacity; Policy; Health Industry

December 2023
Article

Association of Hospital System Affiliation with COVID-19 Capacity Burden

By: Zachary Levin, Pinar Karaca-Mandic, Richard J. Boxer and Regina E. Herzlinger

What is the message? The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the highly variable and uncoordinated responses by hospitals. The authors found that while the non-top ten system affiliated hospitals had a larger COVID-19 share index relative to independent hospitals, top-ten system... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Resource Allocation; Health Pandemics; Demographics; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry