Reform and remembrance: the place of the private sector in the future of health care policy.
Although the nation failed during the past decade to enact large-scale, structural change in government health policy, it has seen health care in the private sector remodeled dramatically during the same period. In this article I argue that a new round of equally significant changes is quite possible, this time at the hands of the national government. More specifically, I argue that for a variety of reasons, both enduring and more recently born, support for the private sector and the market in health care is relatively weak: that given likely trends in costs, demographics, and inequalities, it is likely to get even weaker; and that in the potential coming crisis of the health care system. there will be a real opportunity for seizing the agenda and winning policy battles on the part of would-be reformers pushing large-scale, public sector-oriented changes that go well beyond the recent reform efforts directed at managed care and HMOs.
Reeher
Grant
G
Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, USA.
D001294:Attitude to Health; D018166:Health Care Reform; D019981:Health Care Sector / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans; D007348:Insurance, Health / Q000639:trends; D007857:Leadership; D011050:Policy Making; D011157:Population Dynamics; D017149:Private Sector; D011639:Public Opinion; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States