ABSTRACT
American health care had changed profoundly, and its impact on the economy. The American health-care system's nonequilibrium growth in costs affected the rest of the economy, including the larger cycle of inflation, Cost of Living Adjustments to wages, corporation investment decisions between the US and abroad, and competition between various interest groups for federal subsidies. The maturation of the "baby boom" generation brought with it a major increase in the size of the potential labor force and the political radicalization of a college generation. Health-care costs, which were doubling over and beyond what inflation was doing to health-care prices, affected the runaway inflation rate that began to plague the American economy. By 1980, cost control had become the major unsolved problem defining the agendas for both public and private healthcare funders. Cost control for medical services was becoming an ever higher priority for the federal government.
