ABSTRACT

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the insights that can be gained for an understanding of health care and its policy directions by a review of relevant events since World War II. It draws on its service as Chief Logistical Advisor to the Surgeon General of the Army during World War II. The book explores many critical dimensions of the health care system within the context of health care reforms already underway or those looming ahead. It provides a lengthened perspective on the reform proposals that are competing for attention. The book deals with critical dimensions of the extant system: personnel, nonprofit organizations, and high-tech medicine and more conceptual issues involved in competition and global budgets. It focuses on prospective financing issues connected with improved access for the poor and President Bill Clinton’s proposals for health reform, advanced in the spring of 1993.