ABSTRACT
The funding for the project was provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the principal investigator was Howard Berliner, an Associate Research Scholar on the Conservation staff. Berliner selected four major themes for detailed evaluation: the potential and limitation of forecasting techniques; the transformation in employment; the capital issue and how it has been changing; and the role of technology. The American people were willing to give employer-sponsored health insurance more time to see if it could provide adequate coverage for most, if not all, of the public. The combination of rapid growth in health care services, particularly hospital-based care, the successful organization of nonprofessional workers by urban trade unions, and the growing role of third-party payers resulted in striking improvements in the wage levels and benefits of the nonprofessional work force. At one point the continuing inflation in health care costs caught the public's attention, and analysts identified technology as the principal, if not the sole, responsible actor.
