PolicyGuy

Thursday, January 29, 2004


Hate Your HMO? Blame Congress
Ever wonder where some basic facts of life today came from? Like why you have a "health care provider" rather than a family physician? Where did HMOs come from?

Twila Brase, president of the Citizens Council on Health Care, says Blame Congress for HMOs. The short version: after creating Medicare, Congress had to do something to contain costs. HMOs were the answer. As is often the case with public policy, this had been an unqualified success.

"Justice Louis D. Brandeis'?s metaphor of the states as "laboratories" for policy experiments ... had almost nothing to do with federalism and everything to do with his commitment to scientific socialism. .... To this day, it continues to inhibit a truly experimental, federalist politics." -- Michael S. Greve

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