Medical Savings Accounts - Len M. Nichols

Posted by CHPRE Staff Publications Friday, September 1st, 1995

Introduction:

Medical savings accounts represent a relatively new proposed solution for our health care cost growth problem. While general support for cost containment is widespread, strategies for restraining cost growth vary considerably, from governmental price setting or premium controls to an emphasis on competition to discipline the market, with many variants in between. Managed care and health system integration are both gaining momentum as employers and governments abandon traditional indemnity insurance and unfettered fee-for-service medicine to pursue lower costs and high quality without resorting to governmental regulation. Modern managed care systems attempt to control costs and quality through systems approaches- utilization management techniques,  provider profiling, provider payment incentives-that attempt to enforce cost-effective norms of behavior and treatment patterns. Strong government controls over health care reflect a different type of systems approach in which the goal is to exert power over providers, often in the form of administered prices, on behalf of patients and taxpayers.

”Medical Savings Accounts,” Business and Health (September 1995).

Click here to view the article.