The role of nursing in public policy reform

Currently, individuals concerned about the cost and quality of health care, and the necessity of major system reform, are grappling with the concepts of managed competition, managed cooperation, sponsors, and health insurance purchasing cooperatives. Managed competition, broadly defined, is a purchasing strategy designed to obtain maximum value for consumers and employers as they acquire health care. Managed competition occurs at the level of integrated financial and delivery plans, not at the individual provider level. The goal of managed competition is to divide the providers in each community into competing economic units to motivate them to develop efficient delivery systems (Enthoven, 1993). Efficient health care delivery systems have not resulted from the fee-for-service and remote third-party reimbursement practices that currently dominate the health care system. However, more efficient delivery systems have emerged from managed care. Some of the best known models of managed care that have demonstrated cost effectiveness include Kaiser Permanente, Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound, and Washington Group Health. The rapidly escalating consumption of US economic resources in the name of health care has led to the current pressure for health care reform. Although the public discussion about health care reform centers around the high cost of health care, we are, in truth, in the midst of both a crisis of medical care and an emergence of an era of health care for the nation's people.