Word: hmos
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Brien agreed, saying health care costs are currently volatile because both Congress and the Clinton Administration are weighing several plans to reform health maintenance organizations (HMOs) and public care facilities...
...idea from Clinton: managed competition. Currently, 90% of all Medicare patients go to ``fee-for-service'' doctors and hospitals. The more they charge, the more Medicare pays. There is no incentive to reduce costs. But costs could be cut if Medicare patients are coaxed into health-maintenance organizations (HMOs), where a single payment provides for all of a patient's needs...
Some experts worry that HMOs could become black holes, in which competition sucks down the quality of care, putting it beyond public scrutiny and accountability. Still, a major study conducted for the government concluded that requiring Medicare recipients to use HMOs could reduce the government's costs as much as 10%. Perhaps, suggest some, even greater savings might be possible if HMOs were competing for large numbers of Medicare patients. And as consumers make smart purchases, the marketplace would naturally produce greater efficiency at less cost. That kind of scenario gives people like Wilensky hope. ``This is the best kind...
...have to eliminate physician training entirely. "At some point," says TIME health care writer Janice Castro, "these hospitals simply will be unable to train the next generation of physicians. Nobody wants to pay for these costly research centers: not the federal government, and not the privately-run HMOs and insurance companies. This is a drastic way of reducing health costs -- in effect, eliminating specialists...
...onerous "pre-existing condition" clauses insurance companies use to deny coverage. It also targets Medicare and Medicaid as the last great preserves of fee-for-service medicine. Price controls are rejected because they spawn cost shifting. The alternative would use a voucher system to move future beneficiaries into HMOs. Those seeking greater care would have to pay for it out of their own pockets...