Drawing the Lines for the Debate on Competition

The Reagan administration, remarkably successful in its efforts to cut the fiscal 1982 federal health budget, is now moving to design a "pro-competition" health proposal.

Abstract

The Reagan administration, remarkably successful in its efforts to cut the fiscal 1982 federal health budget, is now moving to design a "pro-competition" health proposal. Although the process has barely begun, the prime goals of the exercise seem clear: to make price a supreme consideration in the purchase of medical care, to place the provider at financial risk for his or her medical actions and, perhaps above all, to control future federal expenditures for health services. Of the administration's intention to draft a pro-competition bill there is no doubt. Of its prospects for transforming a $240-billion industry along competitive lines, . . .