Health Care: An Industry In Transition

The health care system in the United States enters the twenty-first century as a vast industry, indeed by some measures the largest in the country. The system comprises powerful financial interests, vast administrative bureaucracies both governmental and private, and large complexes that develop and manufacture the products used in health care. Latterly, these corporate and government interests have spawned yet another large industry, aimed at assessing whether the other participants in the health care financial bonanza are getting value for their investments. This most recent development began with various attempts at quality assurance and has subsequently adapted to become the field known generically as managed care.