Word: hmos
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Boston is not the first city to attempt amerger of this kind. Other cities--most recently,Minneapolis--have responded similarly to thehospitals' growing size and to the growing numberof HMOs, says one health care expert who requestedanonymity...
...patients to switch to more economical health maintenance organizations and preferred provider organizations, in which groups of doctors and hospitals provide care for a flat fee -- and usually at a cost to the patient of longer waiting times and rationing of specialists' services. "Most people would be forced into HMOs because that's all they would be able to afford," says Representative Jim McDermott, a Democrat from Washington State who has proposed a "single-payer" health-care system similar to the one in Canada. White House officials privately explain that pushing more Americans into HMOs and PPOs is crucial...
Nevertheless, some of it will probably occur. Not classic, state-dictated rationing, with a star chamber headed by Magaziner deciding who gets dialysis or brain scans. But the competition Clinton hopes to inject into the system, combined with his proposed cap on insurance premiums, could cause insurance companies and HMOs to put pressure on their physicians, who in turn might respond by drawing lines not unlike Oregon's. Companies "will make rationing decisions in the privacy of their own boardrooms. I'd anticipate seeing significant cutbacks in care," predicts Steffie Woolhandler, a co-founder of Physicians for a National Health...
...traditional fee-for-service medicine from an individual doctor. Less expensive would be the so-called preferred-provider organizations (PPOs) that many companies are now using; these require that workers go to specified doctors and hospitals that are part of the plan. An even cheaper option would be the HMOs that provide health care for a fixed price, although often with some waiting and rationing of specialist's services. Given such choices, health-care economists believe, consumers will economize by shifting toward HMOs and PPOs, which will further drive down health-care costs...
...determine who's going to win, whether it's an HMO, a fee- for-service network or whatever. It's just to set a groundwork for who's going to compete and provide choice to all consumers. A lot of people think HMOs are going to win out, but I think Americans like a fee-for-service ((option...