A 10 page paper divided into two parts. The first is a five-page discussion of HMOs' history and future, concentrating on Paul Ellwood's (2002) proposal that the HMO structure be replaced with his HEROIC one. The second part of the paper answers 4 questions addressing Medicare and Medicaid's influence on the evolution of American healthcare, and assessment of President Bush's ban on continued collection of stem cells from aborted embryos. Bibliography lists 7 sources.
Name of Research Paper File: CC6_KShmoHistory.rtf
Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
health care costs have been the bane of physicians, hospital administrators, employers and certainly the uninsured (or underinsured) for nearly three decades. Various measures have been enacted, some with
little or no effect; others have had only the effect of exacerbating the problem. Thankfully, the Clintons health care reform proposals were rejected when they were, as they certainly
could only have turned a bad situation into a living nightmare of exponentially-spiraling costs beginning at their already too-high level. What we have
tried, it seems, is everything except an approach that will work. This statement means that despite efforts to contain costs and make health care more accessible to all Americans,
our efforts largely have been cosmetic and temporary at best. HMOs now are listed as the responsible parties for 97 percent of all Americans who have insurance coverage and
are not covered through other means such as government programs or the still-uncommon Medical Savings Accounts (MSA). Why HMOs Exist As a percentage
of gross national product, health care spending was 6 percent in 1965. That figure had risen to 14 percent of GNP by 1993 (Lindsey, 1993), even though GNP itself
also had increased dramatically: by 1994, that percentage of GNP had increased to 15 percent and had topped the $1 trillion mark for a total of more than $4,000
for every citizen of the country (Grumbach and Bodenheimer, 1994). Plagued by overspending for years, the general system also has been characterized by underinclusion as well-in 1993, there were
no less than 35 million Americans without health insurance coverage of any kind (Lindsey, 1993). The original federal legislation enabling the existence of