ABSTRACT
American health care has become dramatically different from that which developed elsewhere in the world. An important stream of health-care reform began about a century ago with the establishment of medical science as the basis for health-care delivery. Dramatic public and private efforts to reform the American healthcare system sought to address the problems. Health-care providers were subjected to cost control supervision by government, business, and insurance companies. During the past quarter century American health care has become one of the most important sectors of the economy, a pace setter for economic growth. Political realism proceeds from recognition that interest groups have the power to veto various kinds of proposals for reform, and that powerful interests within the health-care system will protect their own agendas as reform efforts proceed. Health-care providers were subjected to cost control supervision by government, business, and insurance companies.
