The Origins of Our Health Care System

  • Jeffrey C. Merrill
Chapter

Abstract

In September 1993, President Clinton introduced his plan to reform the U.S. health care system. How successful he is in getting his proposals enacted remains to be seen. But, regardless of the outcome—and regardless of what one thinks of the details of the plan itself—his action must already be considered as significant, for the following reasons.

Keywords

Health Care System Gross Domestic Product Health Sector Sickness Fund Hospital Industry 
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Notes

  1. 1.
    Robert Pear, “One Trillion Dollars in Health Costs Predicted,” The New York Times, December 29,1994, p. A12.Google Scholar
  2. 2.
    Robert J. Blendon and Humphrey Taylor, “Views on Health Care: Public Opinion in Three Nations,” Health Affairs, 8 (1), 1989, pp. 149–157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. 3.
    Sylvia Law, Blue Cross: What Went Wrong? ( New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976 ), p. 68.Google Scholar
  4. 4.
    Ibid., p. 68.Google Scholar
  5. 5.
    Ibid., p. 69.Google Scholar
  6. 6.
    Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine (New York: Basic Books, 1982), p. 296. This book offers a good description of both the emergence of Blue Cross and Blue Shield and their implications for the future of health care financing in the United States. See the section “Birth of the Blues,” pp. 295–310.Google Scholar
  7. 7.
    Ibid., p. 297.Google Scholar
  8. 8.
    Ibid., p. 297.Google Scholar
  9. 9.
    Ibid., p. 296.Google Scholar
  10. 10.
    D. W. Light, Political Values and. Health Care: The German Experience, eds. D. W. Light and A. Schuller ( Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986 ), pp. 4–5.Google Scholar
  11. 11.
    Ibid., p. 3.Google Scholar
  12. 12.
    M. G. Taylor, Insuring National Health Care: The Canadian Experience ( Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990 ), p. 34.Google Scholar
  13. 13.
  14. 14.
    Ibid., p. 46.Google Scholar
  15. 15.
    Ibid., p. 17.Google Scholar
  16. 16.
  17. 17.
    S. Andreopoulos, ed., National Health Insurance: Can We Learn from Canada? ( New York: John Wiley, 1975 ), p. 15.Google Scholar
  18. 18.
    Ibid., p. 21.Google Scholar
  19. 19.
    A. C. Monheit and P H. Harvey, Inquiry, Fall 1993, as reported in Health Benefits, November 15, 1993.Google Scholar
  20. 20.
    Pear, p. A12.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Jeffrey C. Merrill 1994

Authors and Affiliations

  • Jeffrey C. Merrill

There are no affiliations available

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