Can HMOs Be Fixed?

In: Dissent: a journal devoted to radical ideas and the values of socialism and democracy, Band 45, S. 67-74

Abstract

Advocates universal & comprehensive health insurance (1) to cover the 16% of Americans who now have no public or private coverage; (2) to help hospitals pressured to end the cross-subsidies that previously enabled them to care for the uninsured; (3) to protect the jobs &, thus, the communities of health care workers; & (4) to improve the care received by the currently underinsured. It is allowed, however, that the US nonparliamentary political system all but precludes the enactment of the sort of ambitious, cohesive plan needed to repair the health care system. Thus, even though an incremental approach tends to politically weaken those it does not directly help, several smaller steps for improving the organization & financing of care are suggested: (A) slowing the shift of not-for-profit providers to the for-profit sector, possibly through the power of the states' attorneys general; (B) regulating & demanding greater accountability from health maintenance organizations; & (C) strengthening & improving Medicare. E. Blackwell