The Empire Strikes Back: More Lessons for Health Care Consumers

A previous article in this journal analyzed the efforts of health care consumers to organize around the Health Systems Agency in east central Illinois. This article continues the account by describing how local providers organized in response to these initiatives, elected their own slate to the local HSA board, and caused consumers to reconsider their participation in health planning. Among the conclusions drawn is that health planning operates in an imbalanced political arena in which providers can mobilize powerful resources to defeat consumer action.