Word: hmos
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Allowing federal aid recepients choice in their options of health payment plans could reduce costs, he said. One procedure would allow individual enrollment in the private health plans such as Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs), he said...
This has all been said before. Doctors, journalists and congressmen have been tossing around a handful of acronyms like "DRGs"--diagnostic related groups--and "HMOs"--health maintenance organizations--for quite some time now. And although the changes taking place in the health care system--in the way doctors are paid and in the way hospitals are organized--are of an unprecedented magnitude, something else is happening as well...
Corporations are especially fond of the concept, which helps them as much as their employees. Ford Motor Co.'s employee insurance program has offered HMOs since the early 1960s. Although only 8% of its employees are now enrolled in HMO programs, Ford will save an estimated $5 million in medical benefits this year...
Conventional health insurance companies are already beginning to feel the pressure from HMOs. The Massachusetts Blue Cross operates five HMOs of its own, with a total membership of 100,000 subscribers, up from 42,000 in 1980. In the St. Paul-Minneapolis area, HMOs are grabbing away subscribers at a breakneck pace, and claim a membership of 25% of the population...
...spurt in hospital admissions, combined with higher than expected rate increases for services by the hospitals, wound up producing a cost overrun of $4.9 million for the plan. The Harvard HMO was forced to boost its premium 18% over last year's level. About a half-dozen other HMOs around the country are experiencing similar difficulties. On balance, however, periodic jumps in HMO premiums seem far preferable to the relentless annual cost accelerations that nonmembers by the millions seem doomed to endure...