Word: hmos
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...financial considerations. Monday, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said the administration hopes to achieve "maximum parity" in insurance coverage "without driving up costs so high that people lose insurance in the end." According to the American Association of Health Plans, a trade group representing more than 1,000 HMOs, a true parity proposal would add "billions of dollars to health-care costs." Higher bills, the employers' lobby warns, would translate into higher health care premiums for both employers and employees...
...long been postponed by conservatives who fear that the lucky Americans who can afford health care will lose the ability to choose their own doctor and level of coverage. But what kind of choice does the average American have now? Over the past 10 years, the rise of HMOs and other health care providers has taken the decision-making ability out of the hands of doctors and given it to bureaucrats. The bottom line compels many health care companies to raise patient costs while scaling back benefits. These companies have little incentive to invest in the quality of care...
What is true of medical devices is also true of medical practitioners. The quantity of medical school applicants has dropped off in recent years, probably because of the poor image of HMOs. A drop in quality will not be long in coming. Should the government lower doctors’ revenues by further intruding into medicine, potential doctors will instead choose to be scientists, lawyers or management consultants; the price of quality health care will be driven ever higher...
...recession, fighting with HMOs--these are worrisome times, to be sure. But Americans have felt STRESSED before, as TIME noted in a 1983 cover story that focused on the ways Americans were finding to relax...
...have the economic clout to force doctors and hospitals to take the rates they offered, a round of hospital closings and mergers has given the providers more bargaining power. And consumer anger--fueled by horror stories of insurance-company bureaucrats denying lifesaving drugs and medical procedures--has forced HMOs to ease restrictions that helped hold insurance prices down. What's more, growing numbers of businesses and consumers are abandoning HMOs. In California, the state that pioneered managed care, the percentage of people enrolled in HMOs has fallen below 50% for the first time in eight years. Most are moving toward...