ABSTRACT
The health care industry, nonexistent a century ago, is a considerable fraction of the US economy and a tricky business with a multitude of legislative problems. This chapter reviews the history of the health care industry, describes how hospitals today make and lose money, and provides a few projections about the future of health care in the United States. In 1930, Justin Kimbal created the first US health care insurance, the Blue Cross, under the border of trust of the University of Texas. In the effort to recruit workers for producing ships during the war in 1940, Kaiser Shipbuilding Company offered employee health benefits to facilitate recruitment. The new development is th at many hospitals have been incorporated into a corporation that consists of hundreds of hospitals, therefore, most of the administrative positions have been cut and a lot of purchasing and decisions are done at a central location.
