Word: hmos
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...such a plan were nationalized, states would be required to pick two or three of the biggest HMOs in their borders and grant them a collective monopoly. Employers would stop buying insurance, Medicare and Medicaid would wither away, and everyone would sign up for one of the new plans, funded through tax dollars and administered through the HMOs...
Thirty-five million people are now enrolled in HMOs -- nearly four times as many as in 1980 -- despite misbegotten government policies that enrich doctors and reward patients for staying out of them. But HMOs suffer from an image problem. They are thought of as pseudosocialist bargain medicine. HMOs need to be "repositioned," as they say in the advertising game. They need a new image as supercapitalist medicine...
...here's a free idea for some medical entrepreneur. Give the HMOs snob appeal. Call the thing Executive Health Maintenance. Add a few cheap frills. Change the sales pitch. "Tired of schlepping from doctor's office to doctor's office, waiting around in squalid surroundings, filling out all those forms? Come to Executive Health Maintenance. We'll take care of everything. Not only do we have the best specialists, plus in-house lab tests and pharmacy, all in one convenient location. We have fresh coffee and croissants in the waiting room, as well as a fax machine, current issues...
Health-maintenance organizations have contributed to the downward price pressure. Set up to provide medical coverage for members at a fixed fee, HMOs control pharmacy expenses by using only the most cost-effective drugs and demanding discounts from manufacturers. In 1984 less than 4% of employees surveyed by the Health Insurance Association of America were enrolled in such health-care plans. By 1988 the percentage had risen...