ABSTRACT
The health maintenance organization (HMO) provides health care for a group of registered users. As the problems of retrospective payment and increasing costs continue to escalate, the federal government has attempted to control the health care system by a variety of means. The HMO is one method of control. The provision of some form of national health insurance (NHI) is another. The Medicaid program is the perfect example of how not to manage NHI. The plans range from a system of total health care from the cradle to the grave as sponsored by Sweden to a plan which is close to the private practice of medicine in Canada. There have been three policy plans set forth to try to maintain equity between physicians and consumers: restrict fees for services and volume of services; pattern the Canadian system after the British; and pattern the Canadian system after American HMOs.
