Consumers enter the political stage? The modernization of health care in Britain and Germany

Abstract

New governance practices associated with the modernization of health systems within Europe focus on equipping health consumers with more information and power in their interactions with clinicians. This article uses material on health care reform in Britain and Germany to highlight ways in which consumerism is refracted through different institutional histories and current political projects. These give rise to different inflections on the meaning of consumerism, including the different associations of `choice', and to different forms of consumer involvement as `stakeholders' in health care systems.