ABSTRACT
Health care reform was supposed to allow an additional 32 million Americans to gain health insurance coverage, thereby reducing the percentage of the uninsured to around 5 percent —the lowest percentage ever. The rising cost of care is also due to the aging of the population and the demand by growing numbers of elderly for health care, as well as increases in hospital expenses and fees for doctors, dentists, and other professional health services. President Harry Truman had proposed a national health insurance program for all Americans in 1945, when health care costs consumed only 4 percent of gross domestic product. In the early to mid-1990s, private health care in the United States experienced a major reorganization into managed care plans. The existing health care delivery system in the United States is a conglomerate of health practitioners, agencies, and organizations, all of which operate more or less independently.
