Abstract:
The American public and American physicians no longer trust HMOs to do the right thing -- provide adequate care for the sick. This distrust stems from the perception that HMOs put profit before care. Distrust is rooted in the American culture. This culture believes in pursuing, perfecting and applying medical technologies, and it holds that every individual, no matter what his or her means, should have access to the best medicine has to offer. Informed and responsible consumers and physicians, acting in concert, offer the best hope of developing a system for distributing limited healthcare resources.