| Sumario: | The writer outlines a strategy for simplifying the service economy by converting full-blown services as much as possible from professional providers to aides and even consumers. Some examples of where such a strategy has been successful include ATMs, self-service gas stations, do-it-yourself home repair, recycling. The most visible area undergoing this change right now is health services in the wake of the rise of HMOs. As HMOs pressurized doctors and hospitals to decrease costs, physicians aides, registered nurses, and others started providing services that doctors used to do, and now they are operating their own primary-care clinics. The next logical step in health care is to begin turning over the most basic medical procedures to the consumer.
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