These companies have brought affordable health care to many citizens. By 1994, two-thirds of all Americans with private health insurance used these plans. The problem is that big business and managed care plans are cutting cost by limiting treatment options and patient choice.
Supporters say that managed care plans provide quality care better than any one physician can.
But many doctors and patients have criticized HMOs as a system that reduces choice and forces doctors to place saving money before saving lives. Congress has struggled though, unsure of how to protect patients without driving up health care costs. Many critics would like medicine to go back to the days before managed care spread. Earlier in the Twentieth Century physicians were free from insurance companies, able to act solely as advocates for their patients. Supporters of the managed care system say that back then, doctors were likely to spend more than necessary, because their profit came directly to from the people.