The End of Healthcare Consultese?

When talking about their real healthcare experiences using online networks, people describe themselves as "patients" about five times more frequently than as "consumers"; and people call themselves "consumers" about seven times as much as they call themselves "clients". Most of the objections to the word "patient" seem to come from academics who decry the supposed paternalism associated with the word; or from those who prefer "consumer" on principle - they object to the "medical model" of health. My interpretation: Regular people overwhelmingly prefer "patient".